News: Newsclips

Saturdays with CSIL (Computer Science Instructional Laboratory) focuses on exposing Chicago Public School high school students to computer science at an introductory level, as some CPS students have limited access to CS classes.

Fourth-year PhD student Kelly Wagman, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and the Greater Chatham Initiative, develops a community-based app that bridges the gap between the residents’ and the scientists’ needs for flood-reporting resources and data.

When mixing disciplines, there are some subjects that are much more readily paired—psychology and biology or visual arts and photography. However, one physical science course at the University of Chicago seeks to combine three subjects that aren’t a natural fit on the surface. “The Chemistry of Artists' Materials,” taught by Assistant Instructional Professor Hannah Lant, blends together art, history and science.

UChicago alumnus John Jumper was awarded a share of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to the AlphaFold project, which uses AI to predict protein structures. Learn more about Jumper's academic and scientific journey.

Scientists from UChicago created a new way to study snoRNAs, showing they may serve a surprisingly broad range of functions across many cell types.

The US Department of Defense has invested $2.4 million over two years in deepfake detection technology from a startup called Hive AI. UChicago Prof. Ben Zhao comments on the potential efficacy of this tool.

Internet service providers offer a wide range of speeds in their plans. However, the speed customers pay for is not always consistent with what they experience. Computer Science Prof. Nick Feamster comments on factors that might contribute to varied internet speeds.

California is making so much solar energy that large commercial operators are increasingly forced to stop production, raising questions about the state’s costly plan to shift entirely to carbon-free sources of electricity. Computer science Prof. Andrew Chien comments.

The term “dark energy” was coined by the UChicago astrophysicist Michael Turner in 1998. Since then, details about this phenomenon have remained a mystery to scientists. Prof. Joshua Frieman comments on why it is likely that dark energy was not prevalent during the initial inflation of the Big Bang.

Sneha Vasudevan, who grew up in Chennai, India, and now lives in the Bay Area, earned her Master’s in Applied Data Science (formerly the Master’s in Analytics) in 2022. She is a Lead Technical Project Manager at Uplight, a technology company that “enables energy providers, ecosystem partners, and consumers to conserve, deploy, manage, and monetize energy resources.” We interviewed Sneha about her experiences at UChicago and her career path since.

Scientists and companies increasingly support blocking some sunlight to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. David Keith, head of UChicago's Climate Systems Engineering initiative, is leading the movement in favor of geoengineering experimentation. 

A collaboration between computer engineers and AI specialists at Microsoft and UChicago resulted in the creation of a new language that allows large language models (LLMs) to communicate more efficiently.

John Jumper, SM’12, PhD’17, currently with Google’s DeepMind, received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Dec. 10 in Stockholm, Sweden. Watch his Nobel lecture, "Building chemical and biological intuition into protein structure prediction." His talk begins at 1:09:38.
 

Coating the interior of superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cavities with a Nb3Sn film can drastically enhance the efficiency and performance of particle accelerator infrastructure. However, imperfections in the deposited Nb3Sn coating limit its implementation as a next-generation SRF material. A study by the Sibener group, in collaboration with Cornell University and Brigham Young University, explores how imperfections form and how they can affect SRF performance. 

On Saturday, November 16, the University of Chicago Chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE UChicago) hosted the SHPE Chicagoland Día de Ciencias at the William Eckhardt Research Center. The STEM outreach event aimed to inspire Hispanic students and their families through hands-on learning, mentorship, and practical resources for academic success.