News: Students

Geophysical sciences graduate student, Sasha Warren, writes in Scientific American how wind, ice, and rock may have combined to give our planet its shortest day.

Dieter M. Gruen, Physics PhD’51, is a 99-year-old scientist who fled Nazi Germany, worked on the atomic bomb, and continues to push the bounds of alternative energy technology. 

Research led by Prof. Philipp Heck, the Robert A. Pritzker Curator of Meteoritics at Chicago’s Field Museum, and geophysical sciences graduate student, Xin Yang, explains strange particle ejection behavior seen in 2019 on the Bennu asteroid.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to use supercomputing simulations to reveal weaknesses in HIV-1 defense, share the scientific community's enthusiasm for the first full-color images of James Webb Space Telescope, and to invent a ‘quantum flute’ that can make particles of light move together.

UChicago Magazine profiles Kenneth Sembach, AB’88, the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, the NASA-contracted nonprofit organization responsible for Webb’s flight and science operations.

Emily Chen, SB’20 Chemistry and a researcher in the lab of Prof. Giulia Galli, has been selected for the inaugural Arley D. Cathey International Graduate Study Fellowships, which provide financial assistance to pursue a rigorous, research-oriented master's degree at an internationally renowned foreign research university.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to understand why Mars dried out, expand and activate the Chicagoland quantum network, and analyze samples from asteroid Ryugu collected by Hayabusa2.

After two years of remote participation, the 2022 DSI Summer Lab will bring 49 high school, undergraduate, and master’s students to Chicago for a ten-week immersion into data science research.

An inaugural cohort of a dozen students will join quantum research labs around the Midwest this June, planting the seeds for a diverse and inclusive quantum workforce.

Physics graduate student Katrina Miller traces histories of Black women physicists and astrophysicists in the PSD, in a personal essay for Wired Magazine. She writes, “I just wanted to be a scientist, not a trailblazer. But in my field, people like me are anomalies—and we face constant scrutiny for our race and gender.”

The Physical Sciences Division has selected nine graduate students to receive a William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year.  

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to capture the first image of the Milky Way's massive black hole, map the digital divide affecting connectivity across the country, and use computer simulations to understand the world's deadliest viruses.

Students in the College, Zihni Baykara and Macallan Maedke, and graduate students, Kaeli Hughes and Rostom Mbarek have been honored by the Enrico Fermi Institute with Nathan Sugarman Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate and Graduate Research. 

A graduate student in the Department of Chemistry, Ian Bongalonta, has been named a winner of the 2022 Wayne C. Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching, awarded annually to graduate students for outstanding instruction of undergraduates. Additionally, three graduate students have been awarded the Physical Sciences Teaching Prize for 2021-22: Sandrine Legault, Colin Lynch, and Sarah Litwin of the Department of Chemistry.

By reviewing large-scale weather conditions and formations before the June 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave, University of Chicago scientists, including College student first author, Emily Neal, discovered that a cyclone spawned an “anticyclone,” which combined to produce and then trap heat near the surface of the region.