News: Students

2024

Sarah King uses art competition to enhance student understanding

April 11, 2024

4-panel comic strip: Finding small bits in waves with Tiny, the older than time animal

For the past two years, Chemistry Assistant Professor Sarah King has organized an open art contest in her CHEM 122 class. At the end of the quarter, several students are selected to present a visual project before the class that breaks down complex chemistry principles into creative works of art. By incorporating elements of creativity and communication, the competition serves multiple purposes in King’s pedagogical approach.


Non-unital noise adds a new wrinkle to the quantum supremacy debate

April 11, 2024

Bill Fefferman

CS PhD Student Soumik Ghosh and Assistant Professor Bill Fefferman find that random circuit sampling problems that incorporate non-unital noise do not anticoncentrate, breaking every easiness and hardness result to date.


Winners of the 2024 UChicago Science as Art competition announced

April 11, 2024

black and white graphical computer program simulation of a discrete dynamical system of the plane

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!


2024 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

April 11, 2024

NSF logo

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.


University of Chicago astronomy students prepare for trip of a lifetime for solar eclipse

April 5, 2024

Prof. Josh Frieman

Josh Frieman will lead around 50 astronomy students south to Carbondale to be in the path of totality for the upcoming solar eclipse.


Meet Pouya Mahdi Gholami, Computer Science

April 3, 2024

Pouya Mahdi Gholami

Pouya Mahdi Gholami, a fourth-year PhD student in Computer Science, studies adaptive operation and intelligence on energy-limited edge devices.


New method better describes the “in-between” stages of chemical reactions

March 27, 2024

Researchers from the Chemistry Department in the Physical Sciences Division have developed a computational approach to accurately describe transient states for many chemical reactions.


U. of C. contest seeks astronomy art from South Side students

February 2, 2024

An astronaut meets a celestial whale in a painting from the 2023 South Side Science Art Contest

Hyde Park Herald article highlights an art contest held by UChicago astronomy and astrophysics department with the aim of connecting more South Side elementary students to the cosmos.


Meet Alice Luna, Astronomy and Astrophysics

January 31, 2024

Alice Luna

Currently a third-year PhD student in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Alice Luna has been analyzing spectroscopic data from telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory to study the metallicity distributions of ultra-faint dwarf galaxies that provide archaeological access to the first stars and galaxies.


AI poisoning tool Nightshade received 250,000 downloads in 5 days

January 30, 2024

AI-generated image of a computer tower and monitor smoking

In a Venture Beat article, CS Prof. Ben Zhao comments on the fact that his lab's tool "Nightshade" has received 250,000 downloads in the five days since its release, saying that "the response is simply beyond anything we imagined."
 


Exploring 3D Paintbrush: An AI that colors with words

January 26, 2024

Selection of objects with 3D paintbrush details added

Using Cascaded Score Distillation, Dale Decatur and the 3DL lab create 3D Paintbrush: a tool that makes high-resolution 3D edits in localized regions of 3D objects.


University of Chicago professor, PhD students create tools to protect art from generative AI

January 25, 2024

Video still showing an AI interpretation of a Van Gogh painting

In an ABC 7 video, Prof. Ben Zhao discusses Nightshade, a tool that protects artwork from being mimicked by AI.


UChicago researchers form new dynamic bio interfaces to aid biosensing and treatment

January 23, 2024

Bozhi Tian

As their recent research in Nature Chemical Engineering demonstrates, the Bozhi Tian lab, led by graduate student Jiuyun Shi, has developed new interfaces that offer adaptability, precision, and targeted interactions with biological components, a discovery that could have significant implications for the future of healthcare.  


Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use

January 23, 2024

A hand pours a bottle of glowing purple liquid onto a keyboard of a vintage desktop PC displaying a pixelated purple skull and crossbones log amid flickering lines of static

Venture Beat article announces that "Nightshade" from the Computer Science Department's SAND Lab is now available for use.


Inno Under 25: The rising startup leaders to watch in Chicago

January 11, 2024

Inno under 25

A Business Journals article lists UChicago undergrads Aarthi Koripelly and Jackson Lee among the Inno Under 25 for their startup Quail.ai, which tied for first place in last year's College New Venture Challenge and participated in the data science accelerator Transform.