News: 2022

Welcome to the new faculty joining the Physical Sciences Division in the '22-23 academic year!

Tianle Liu was born and raised in Beijing, China, and first came to UChicago as a physics and mathematics double major in The College. This will be her fifth year on campus! She is currently pursuing a master’s in computer science. As part of the EPiQC education team, she works with Professor Diana Franklin to create engaging and accessible quantum computing education materials.

The University of Chicago earned the #6 spot in U.S. News Best Colleges national university rankings for 2022-2023.

A new study suggests that many more planets in distant solar systems have large amounts of water than previously thought—as much as half water and half rock.

The DOE has awarded Argonne and a team of academic and community leaders, including UChicago, $25 million over five years to advance urban climate science by studying climate change effects at local and regional scales. It will establish a center called the Community Research on Climate and Urban Science or CROCUS.

The Garden Project led by Prof. Ian Foster has been awarded a $3.5 million grant from NSF for researchers from materials science, physics, and chemistry, to create “Model Gardens” that publish and curate AI models, link them with data and computing resources, and make it simple for users.

A UChicago Magazine feature on the Internet Equity Initiative that uses existing data to explore the digital divide and develops new ways of measuring internet activity.

Ian Foster, a pioneer in cloud and high-performance computing, was named the 2022 recipient of the Ken Kennedy Award, bestowed annually by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

WIRED sat down with Prof. Daniel Holz, Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics, to talk about cosmic versus earthly catastrophes, how to cope with doom, and why this is a uniquely perilous time in human history—but also why all is not lost.

Pioneering neutrino researcher Bonnie Fleming has been named Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory chief research officer and deputy director responsible for leading all areas of science and technology. She has also been appointed part-time professor in the Department of Physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago. 

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to predict an extreme heat belt coming to the US, understand universe expansion from black hole collisions, and detect carbon dioxide on a faraway planet using the new James Webb Space Telescope.

The University of Chicago invites members of the community to explore the fascinating world of science at the first annual South Side Science Festival. Meet scientists and learn about everything from jellyfish to DNA at first annual UChicago event

The new Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center will investigate the mechanisms behind sustainably generated hydrogen fuel
 

James Webb Space Telescope has allowed a team co-led by Prof. Jacob Bean to capture definitive evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet about 700 light-years away from Earth, the first indisputable evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star.

Prof. David Archer comments on the planet’s ample stores of subsea methane hydrates as new research suggests a major destabilization of seafloor methane off the coast of Africa around 125,000 years ago.