News: Research

UChicago Ph.D. student Jasmine Lu and Assistant Professor of Computer Science Pedro Lopes built a smartwatch that runs on Physarum Polycephalum, a species of slime mold. 

As part of The Day Tomorrow Began, UChicago News explains the meaning of quantum internet—a network of quantum computers that will someday send, compute, and receive information encoded in quantum states.

Sidney Nagel, the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, is accepting the 2023 American Physical Society Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research. The award, sometimes referred to as the ‘lifetime achievement Oscar of physics,’ recognizes “contributions of the highest level that advance our knowledge and understanding of the physical universe in all its facets.”

Sanjana Curtis, a postdoc in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, wrote an article for Scientific American describing new evidence on how cosmic cataclysms forge gold, platinum, and other heavy members of the periodic table.

Fred Chong, the Seymour Goodman Professor in the Department of Computer Science, was elevated to IEEE Fellow in the organization’s 2023 class. The distinction was given to Chong for “contributions to the field of quantum computer architecture, compilation and optimization.”

In this Big Brains podcast episode with Prof. David Awschalom, Dept. of Physics, explore how foundational discoveries at UChicago have shaped quantum research.

Climate scientist Tiffany Shaw explains why the southern hemisphere is stormier than its northern neighbor. Also, the southern hemisphere is getting even stormier over time, whereas the north is not. This is consistent with what climate models simulate for a warming world.

A new study led by climate scientist Tiffany Shaw explains the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the Northern, by about 24%, and asymmetry has increased since the 1980’s. Ocean circulation and the large mountain ranges in the Northern Hemisphere are the culprits.

Dept. of Chemistry Prof. Bozhi Tian’s artwork melds "scenes of nature with hints of technology, much as his research merges biological and synthetic systems." Read more about his artwork and research in UChicago Magazine.

The University of Chicago and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) signed an agreement on Nov. 30 to establish the International Research Center for Fundamental Scientific Discovery (IRC Discovery).

Assoc. Prof. Bryan Dickinson, Dept. of Chemistry, was awarded the ACS Chemical Biology Young Investigator Award. He was cited for his novel means to perturb, probe, or control numerous important biological regulatory programs spanning from the lipid signaling to epitranscriptome and RNA targeting.

A $10m gift to UChicago from the Margot and Tom Pritzker Foundation will establish the Pritzker Plant Biology Center on the University’s Hyde Park campus. It will be led by Prof. Chuan He, Dept. of Chemistry, and will bolster efforts in investigating pathways promoting plant growth and crop yields to combat global problems like food supply, drought, and climate change.

This month PSD reserachers were featured in the news for their efforts to create an 'artificial photosynthesis' system, advance nanoparticle research to fight cancer, and describe cloudy atmospheres on explanets with the James Webb Space telescope.

A group of researchers from the Amyoli Internet Research Lab (AIR Lab) led by Asst. Prof. Marshini Chetty of computer science conducted a study to investigate how certain Netflix features quietly undermine our agency and keep us watching curated content longer.

The James Webb Space Telescope has identified a rich mix of gases swirling in the skies of a hot, Jupiter-like world orbiting a star that's around 700-light years from Earth.