News: Students

UChicago faculty designed an alternate reality game, Terrarium, to help students develop innovative proposals about climate change and practice the kind of rigorous inquiry at the heart of UChicago's core values.  

Three UChicago CS PhD students and two students from the MS in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (CAPP) program were named to the 2020 class of Siebel Scholars, the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation announced. They are 5 of this year’s cohort of 93 Siebel Scholars, who are chosen from a select group of graduate schools for business, computer science, energy science and bioengineering.

Gravitational waves will be the focus of a free UChicago lecture series this fall aimed at making the physical sciences accessible to the public. The lectures will be held at 11 a.m. Saturdays from Sept. 28 to Nov. 23 in Lecture Hall 106 at the Kersten Physics Teaching Center. 

Student-driven changes in laboratories at UChicago, including a Shut the Sash program, yield energy and cost savings.

Computer science BX/MS alumna Devshi Mehrotra has utilized her technical background to tackle issues ranging from criminal justice reform to income inequality. She led compileHer, a group dedicated to computer science education for young girls, particularly those of color.

Assoc Prof. Frabrycky's research group noticed a star's irregular dimming pattern, leading to the discovery and precise measurement of a new exoplanet's mass. 

Prof. Wendy Freedman discusses the possibility of systematic errors in Hubble constant calculations with Science News.

Feinstein and her colleagues have discovered one exoplanet slightly larger than Earth and two exoplanets of a type not typically found in our solar system. 

Computer Science graduate student Steven Basart recently published a data set that can improve the accuracy of AI model image recognition technology.  

Gregory Rassolov, who is pursuing a PhD in Chemistry, is among four graduate students recognized for exceptional teaching of undergraduates. He was nominated for the Booth Prize by faculty and students for his ability to demystify the subject material and make it less intimidating. 

Third-year undergraduate students, Keir Adams, Nikhil Pandit and Maritha Wang, have received the prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarships, awarded annually based on academic merit in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

James Callahan’s hometown is Boston, Massachusetts. He completed a BA in chemistry and physics at Harvard University and then taught high school physics for two years on the North Shore of Boston. Most recently, he worked as a research and teaching assistant at Harvard. He’s now in his second year of pursuing a PhD at the University of Chicago in chemistry.

Emily Smith was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. She attended the University of Kansas and earned a BS in physics and computer science. She’s currently in her second year of pursuing a PhD in physics at the University of Chicago.

Sarah Brown was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. Prior to coming to the University of Chicago, she completed a BS in Honours Physics & Chemistry at McGill University. She’s currently a fourth-year student in the Department of Chemistry’s PhD program. We interviewed her via email about her experiences at UChicago.