2022
Women’s History Month spotlight: Meteorologist Bernice Ackerman
March 14, 2022

For Women’s History Month, The Washington Post profiles prominent women in atmospheric science history and includes Bernice Ackerman who received a bachelor's, master's, and PhD from UChicago between 1948 and 1965.
196 lasers help scientists recreate the conditions inside gigantic galaxy clusters
March 11, 2022

Astrophysicist Prof. Emeritus Don Lamb is co-author on a new paper that may solve a decades-long mystery—why is gas in galaxy clusters still hot even after billions of years? Focusing 196 lasers on a target the size of a dime, scientists simulated conditions in a galaxy cluster and found solid evidence that hot and cold spots come from the impact of magnetic fields on the cooling of the hot gas.
Giant Magellan Telescope awards IDOM final design of its telescope enclosure
March 8, 2022

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) today announced they have awarded IDOM, a renowned engineering and architecture firm based in Spain, a contract to complete the telescope enclosure design by 2024. UChicago is a founding member of GMT.
James Webb Space Telescope will help assess atmospheres of strange ‘sub-Neptunes’
March 4, 2022

Jacob Bean, associate professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is co-leading a team that plans to use James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to look at sub-Neptune planets and better model atmosphere composition and circulation.
Could tiny devices made out of DNA treat cancer?
March 3, 2022

A team of University of Chicago chemists and biologists including Prof. Yamuna Krishnan developed a tiny device made out of DNA intended to locate tumor cells and force them to reveal themselves to patrolling immune cells.
Scratching the surface: Regional research groups explore winter conditions of Green Bay, Great Lakes
March 1, 2022

Students and researchers in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences participated in the recently launched “Winter Grab,” a first of its kind, week-long collection event for regional researchers studying Great Lakes’ winter conditions.
CS Prof. Diana Franklin featured speaker for quantum workforce national plan
February 28, 2022

Following the release of the national plan for developing a quantum workforce, educators and leaders in quantum information science came together to discuss the future of quantum education in the US. Computer science professor Diana Franklin was a featured speaker.
Local nuclear reactor helps UChicago scientists catch and study neutrinos
February 28, 2022

A nuclear reactor at an Illinois energy plant is helping University of Chicago scientists learn how to catch and understand the tiny, elusive particles known as neutrinos. Prof. Juan Collar said, “This is the closest that neutrino physicists have been able to get to a commercial reactor core.”
In the News – February 2022
February 24, 2022

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to read out a qubit on demand and set a record for preserving quantum states for more than five seconds, to revolutionize the field of 2D materials with a technique to cut and stack fragile sheets of nanomaterials, and to demonstrate ultracold atoms can segregate into separate domain states.
The next big quantum leap may require better software
February 24, 2022

Seymour Goodman Professor of Computer Science Fred Chong comments on a new programming language called Twist that can help scientists discover which qubits in their machines become entangled when working on a problem, and then take specific actions, like only accepting data from an unentangled qubit.
Remembering Moddie Taylor, a Black scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project
February 23, 2022

More than a dozen Black scientists made key contributions to the Manhattan Project but their stories have often been overlooked. One of them was Moddie Taylor, SM’39, PhD’43, who worked in the Metallurgical Laboratory—the arm of the Manhattan Project based at UChicago—and went on to lead Howard University chemistry.
Geophysical scientists invited onto NASA’s Curiosity rover mission as participating scientists, will choose targets for three year period
February 21, 2022

NASA has selected University of Chicago associate professor of geophysical sciences, Edwin Kite, to join the Mars Curiosity rover mission as a participating scientist. Kite, along with fourth-year Ph.D. student Sasha Warren, hopes to expand the rover science team’s understanding of climate history on Mars.
Sloan Fellow Pedro Lopes interviewed from HCI Lab
February 17, 2022

Newly announced Sloan Fellow Asst. Prof. Pedro Lopes, Department of Computer Science, was interviewed about his human computer integration research by FOX32 Chicago.
Beagle supercomputer gets a GPU-based upgrade thanks to $2M NIH grant
February 16, 2022

Amgen Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Benoit Roux is leading the effort to build a supercomputing cluster to explore structure and dynamics of biological systems.
A unique material transmits heat in one direction and blocks it in another
February 9, 2022

An interview with Prof. Jiwoong Park, Department of Chemistry, who talks about his group’s newly engineered crystalline material that is an excellent transmitter of heat in the x-y plane but a thermal insulator in the z plane.