News: Student Awards

Hilman Hanivan, Sophia Henn, Jonathan Liu, Raghav Mehrotra, and Yudai Tanaka were selected to the prestigious program’s Class of 2026.

UChicago alum John Paparrizos won the SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award for his k-Shape algorithm, advancing time series data analysis across fields like healthcare and finance.

Excellence in research leads chemistry major Melody Tang to the prestigious award.

The Physical Sciences Division has selected three graduate students to receive a William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship for the 2025-2026 academic year.

This year, ten PSD instructors and students have been honored for excellence in teaching the next generation of scientists.

Congratulations to PSD graduate student, Nikki Keramati, who was awarded a 2025 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship! The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

Zewei Liao, Michael Rosenbaum, Brennan Schaffner, Lennart Maximilian Seifert, and Shawn Shan were selected to the prestigious program’s Class of 2025.

Ava Polzin is one of 50 students selected as a 2024 Quad Fellow. Now in its second year, the Quad Fellowship supports exceptional master's and doctoral students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the United States.

Sarah Willson, a chemistry graduate student, has won the 2024 Nellie Yeoh Whetten Award from the American Vacuum Society for her thesis research on superconducting materials. The award is one of the highest honors given to a female graduate student for their doctoral research.

Chemistry Graduate Student Lauren McNamara has been recognized with the 2024 Merck Research Award. McNamara, who works as part of the John Anderson Lab, will be recognized at the American Chemical Society Women Chemists Committee (WCC) luncheon in the fall and will present her research at a symposium in August. 

University of Chicago rising fourth-year students Sarah Kress, Eva McCord, and Joshua Pixley have been awarded 2024 Barry Goldwater Scholarships. Kress and Pixley are chemistry majors.

This year, nine PSD instructors and students have been honored for excellence in teaching the next generation of scientists.

Congratulations to Gabriel Yusuke Hoshino, a Physics PhD student in David Miller's group, for being selected to the DOE’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program for Experimental Research in High Energy Physics at Fermilab.

Through world-class training and access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources at DOE National Laboratories, SCGSR prepares graduate students to enter jobs of critical importance to the DOE mission and secures our national position at the forefront of discovery and innovation.

The University of Chicago has announced the winners of its 2024 “Science as Art” contest, which highlights images of innovative scientific research from the UChicago community.

The contest drew more than 60 entries from undergraduates, graduate students, staff, alumni, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty members, showcasing everything from fossils to fly anatomy. Together, these images display the pursuit of knowledge in a new light, underscoring the beauty of intellectual exploration.

The grand-prize winner is “Peculiar Dynamics” by Computer Science PhD student Sam Everett!

Congratulations to the nine PSD graduate students who have been awarded 2024 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships! The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.