News: 2021

The PSD remembers organic chemist John C. Martin, PhD’77, who became a billionaire by developing and marketing a daily single-dose pill that transformed HIV into a manageable disease and who popularized another drug that cures hepatitis C. He died on March 30 at age 69.

In a long-awaited breakthrough, Prof. Cheng Chin and graduate students in the Department of Physics have harnessed molecules into a single quantum state —one of the most important goals in quantum physics.

UChicago scientists, including Assoc. Prof. Bozhi Tian of Chemistry, design ‘nanotraps’ to catch and clear coronavirus from tissue. The potential COVID-19 treatment pairs nanoparticles with immune system to search and destroy viruses.

UChicago beamline scientists at the GeoSoilEnviroCARS facility housed at Argonne National Laboratory helped geologists unlock the secrets of Earth’s early atmosphere. The technique involves very small beams that can measure the exact composition of the atmosphere when Earth’s oldest rocks were formed.

Fernando Bañales Mejia was born and raised in Riverside, California. After graduating from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York, in 2017, he attended the University of Chicago for two years as a PSD Pathway scholar in the Master of Science in the Physical Sciences Division (MSPSD) program. He completed the program in 2020, during the pandemic.

Graduate student Katrina Miller writes for Scientific American about astronomers, like Assoc. Prof. in physics Abigail Vieregg who works on IceCube, searching for the Universe’s most energetic particles by turning on the radio.

Victor Veitch, a new assistant professor in the Department of Statistics and the first faculty hire in the University of Chicago’s new data science initiative, wants to see a future of “safe and credible” artificial intelligence. In order to realize that vision, he’s interested in revising the foundations of machine learning so that models work in ways more palatable to humans and human values, instead of today’s black boxes and non-sequitur logic.

Planetary scientist Edwin Kite led a study finding icy clouds could have kept early Mars warm enough for rivers and lakes.

Chemist Laura Gagliardi and astrophysicist and dean Angela Olinto elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

UChicago’s incoming President Alivisatos is committed to supporting students from a broad array of backgrounds and to fostering a pride in academic inquiry in the same way President Zimmer has been. The Chicago Maroon on this and many other positive qualities he shares with the current president.

Pioneering mathematicians Amie Wilkinson and Benson Farb and astrophysicist and Dean of the Physical Sciences Angela Olinto have been elected to the 2021 American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Assistant professor in computer science, Sarah Sebo, discusses human-robot interaction and "inner speech" — in humans, and now, robots.

PSD’s April spotlight is Jolene Hanchar, Department Administrator for the Department of the Geophysical Sciences. Jolene has been with UChicago for 20 years, since 2001.

Assistant Professor Chenhao Tan weighs in on the science of making tweets go viral and if negative tweets are longer lasting.

Incoming University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos has conducted pioneering research in the field of nanotechnology. This article takes a closer look at his life and the work that led to his winning the 2021 Priestley Medal—the American Chemical Society's highest honor.