News: 2022

A new research initiative at the University of Chicago called the Data & Democracy Initiative aims to ignite interdisciplinary research on the digital challenges facing democracies around the world.

Prof. Emeritus Eugene N. Parker, a pioneering astrophysicist whose contributions to solar physics were so enormous that NASA named its Parker Solar Probe mission after him, died March 15. He was 94.

The Organic Chemistry textbook from Wiley first came out in 1976 and is used by undergraduates throughout the world. Professor Scott Snyder joined the author team for the 11th edition over a decade ago and has since contributed to both the 12th edition and the 13th edition that was published this month.

Faculty profile of Rana Hanocka, a new assistant professor who joined UChicago CS in the summer of 2021, aims to democratize this technology, building AI capabilities for 3D data that transform aspiration into reality.

For Women’s History Month, The Washington Post profiles prominent women in atmospheric science history and includes Bernice Ackerman who received a bachelor's, master's, and PhD from UChicago between 1948 and 1965.

Fifth-year physics graduate student, Savannah Gowen, of Prof. Sidney Nagel's lab, won the NSF MRSEC Science Slam with a short film presentation on training gluten in dough.

Astrophysicist Prof. Emeritus Don Lamb is co-author on a new paper that may solve a decades-long mystery—why is gas in galaxy clusters still hot even after billions of years? Focusing 196 lasers on a target the size of a dime, scientists simulated conditions in a galaxy cluster and found solid evidence that hot and cold spots come from the impact of magnetic fields on the cooling of the hot gas.

Over the past year, fourth-year physics student Buduka Ogonor has participated in both Argonne National Laboratory’s Mini Semester and the DOE’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) program in his pursuit of a career in STEM. “I want to focus on the intersection between artificial intelligence and machine learning in physics, because that’s what my project at Argonne centered around,” he said.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) today announced they have awarded IDOM, a renowned engineering and architecture firm based in Spain, a contract to complete the telescope enclosure design by 2024. UChicago is a founding member of GMT.

The Optical Society of America, now named Optica, selected Prof. Norbert F. Scherer of the Department of Chemistry as the 2022 C.E.K. Mees Medal recipient. He was honored for seminal contributions to optical science, especially nonlinear spectroscopy and microscopy and optical matter experiments.

Jacob Bean, associate professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is co-leading a team that plans to use James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to look at sub-Neptune planets and better model atmosphere composition and circulation.

Prof. Wendy Freedman, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, will address this year’s graduating class on the Main Quad during the June 4 ceremony. A renowned cosmologist, Freedman led the team that made a landmark measurement in 2001 of the Hubble constant—the rate at which the universe is expanding.

A team of University of Chicago chemists and biologists including Prof. Yamuna Krishnan developed a tiny device made out of DNA intended to locate tumor cells and force them to reveal themselves to patrolling immune cells.

Students and researchers in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences participated in the recently launched “Winter Grab,” a first of its kind, week-long collection event for regional researchers studying Great Lakes’ winter conditions.

Following the release of the national plan for developing a quantum workforce, educators and leaders in quantum information science came together to discuss the future of quantum education in the US. Computer science professor Diana Franklin was a featured speaker.