News: 2019

The Department of Energy has awarded University of Chicago and Fermilab scientist Josh Frieman $1 million over three years as part of the inaugural Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellowship program.

Top experts in quantum technology from around the globe will gather at the University of Chicago on Oct. 25 to discuss the future of quantum information science and strategies to build a quantum workforce. 

 

The Heising-Simons Foundation has granted $300,000 for an endowment to support the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Lecture Series at the University of Chicago. The annual lectures are given by outstanding women physicists in honor of Maria Goeppert-Mayer, who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics for developing the nuclear shell model while at UChicago and Argonne National Laboratory.

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.  

University of Chicago Prof. Chuan He partnered with Northwestern Assoc. Prof. Wei Zhang to develop a simple blood test that accurately detects whether patients with diabetes have developed vascular complications, which are responsible for about two-thirds of diabetes deaths. 

Jacob Bean, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, led a project to build and install an innovative instrument that will scan the skies for new exoplanets—worlds in other solar systems that could potentially host life. Over the past eight years, Bean and his team had designed and built the instrument, called MAROON-X; this summer they finally attached it to a telescope at the Gemini Observatory at the top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. 

AI technology is increasingly used to open up new horizons for scientists and researchers. At the University of Chicago, researchers are using it for everything from scanning the skies for supernovae to finding new drugs from millions of potential combinations and developing a deeper understanding of the complex phenomena underlying the Earth’s climate. 

 

This month, PSD researchers have been featured for researching wearable tech that uses electrical stimulation to help a user's muscles perform tasks, extraterrestrial dust that hints at our past, and revolutionary pacemaker technology.

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.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $4 million to the University of Chicago to host the development of an ambitious multi-institutional program to map the leftover light from the Big Bang in greater detail than ever before. 
 

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. 

“Out in the PSD and PME,” an exhibit featuring large-scale portraits of LGBTQ+ and ally members of the Physical Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, will premiere on National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11. Located in the atrium of the William Eckhardt Research Center, the exhibit aims to shed light on the realities of LGBTQ+ people in science and the struggles and triumphs they experience. 

Shirley has been a member of the PSD for 26 years and is originally from Natchez, MS. She truly enjoys being able to apply problem-solving skills in her role of Associate Dean of Students.

A new study by a group of scientists including a University of Chicago professor argues that the ice age was caused by global cooling, triggered by extra dust in the atmosphere from a giant asteroid collision in outer space. 

Forbes features Prof. Fred Chong's Quora response to the question: how will quantum computing change our society? He discusses possible technological advancements using quantum computing, including providing new means for encrypting and securely communicating data.