News: 2019

Jade Checlair was born and raised in Brussels, Belgium. Prior to attending the University of Chicago, she studied physics at the University of Toronto and spent a summer in Tokyo researching exoplanets. She’s now in her third year at UChicago, pursuing a PhD in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences.

The Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes, including the UChicago-run South Pole Telescope, captured the first ever image of a black hole. The black hole is at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster.

In a paper published by Nature on April 3, researchers at the University of Chicago report that atoms can exchange information using intermediary particles. This is the first time the phenomenon has been observed in a cold atom system, where atoms are maintained at temperatures close to absolute zero to reveal their quantum mechanical properties. 

Alan Chang was born in Minneapolis, MN, and grew up in San Jose, CA. He received a BA in mathematics from Princeton and is now in his fifth year of the University of Chicago’s Mathematics PhD program. We interviewed him via email about his experiences at UChicago.

June Wu is from Shanghai, China. Before coming to the University of Chicago, she received her BA in mathematics and MS in scientific computing from the Courant Institute at New York University. She is in her first year of pursuing a PhD with the Committee on Computational and Applied Mathematics (CCAM). We interviewed her via email about her experiences at UChicago.

Petr Panov is from Moscow, Russia. He earned his BSc and MSc in biophysics from Moscow Institute of Technology. He is now a fourth-year student pursuing a PhD in statistics. We interviewed him via email about his experiences at the University of Chicago.

Adina Feinstein grew up in Syosset, New York. She received a BS in Astrophysics from Tufts University and is now a first-year student in the MS-PSD program with a concentration in astronomy & astrophysics. We interviewed her via email about her experiences at the University of Chicago.

A new UChicago research center focused on theoretical chemistry will expand the study of chemical systems by examining the fundamental origins of reactivity, electronic behavior, and complex organization.

John Frederick, professor emeritus in the Department of Geophysical Sciences died Jan. 30. He was 69.

The University of Chicago has named Edward 'Rocky' W. Kolb as director of its Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, a leading center dedicated to deepening our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe and the laws that govern it.

‘finEDge’ is a research-based program that teaches students critical financial decision-making skills, helping them navigate a complex, ever-changing marketplace.

This April, labs in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute for Molecular Engineering (IME) are invited to join a competition to be the Safest Lab of 2019. The premise? The Joint Research Safety Initiative (JRSI), a student and postdoc-run group, will train volunteers to walk through participating labs “looking both for safety mishaps and clever ingenuity.” The winning labs earn not only the title but also a grand prize of $500 or two runner-up prizes of $250 to be used for a lab outing. 

As Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Director, Neli creates, leads and coordinates institutionalized equity, diversity and inclusion programs for all PSD constituents. She builds strategy, provides guidance and develops resources to support diversity and inclusion practices for staff, students, postdocs and faculty. We interviewed her about her past professional experiences and plans for the division.

All around us in the universe, black holes are smashing into each other with tremendous force. These events are so powerful that they cause ripples in the fabric of space-time—and these ripples, called gravitational waves, travel hundreds of millions of light-years across the universe.

For the nearly four decades that Prof. Arūnas Leonardas Liulevičius taught mathematics to undergraduates at the University of Chicago, he was regularly approached by former students telling him he had inspired them to pursue majors or careers in the field after taking his classes.