News: 2023

Prof. Ben Zhao discusses in Scientific American article how AI models are often trained using information not intended for the public, such as medical images.

New Scientist highlighted the work of former Dept. of the Geophysical Sciences PhD student and postdoc James Franke on shifting agricultural regions under climate change (with Prof. Liz Moyer), and Moyer was quoted.

A qualitative research study conducted by faculty and students at the University of Chicago and University of Maryland revealed key tensions and breakdowns in the sociotechnical infrastructure of emergency remote learning that contributed to elementary school children’s privacy and data being compromised.

In Arizona Daily Sun article, Geophysical Sciences Prof. Noboru Nakamura says that "when the jet stream meanders, it creates a heat dome, a pool of very warm air under this displaced jet stream...it's almost like a warm blanket."

MarkTechPost article highlights UChicago researchers' SWE-bench framework, which focuses on real-world software engineering issues, like patch generation and complex context reasoning, offering a more realistic and comprehensive evaluation for enhancing language models with software engineering capabilities.

New Atlas article features FeetThrough, a prototype being developed by Assoc. Prof. Pedro Lopes.

For a Chicago Maroon op-ed, Assoc. Prof. Andrew Ferguson, Prof. Benoît Roux, Assoc. Prof. John Anderson, Biophysical Sciences Curriculum Director Adam T. Hammond, Assoc. Prof. Graham Slater, Prof. Henry Hoffmann, and Prof. Aaron P. Esser-Kahn argue that DEI initiatives in higher education fundamentally align with scientific rigor and institutional policies and play an important role in ensuring that we recruit and retain the absolute best scholars and provide a supportive climate within which all of us can pursue world-class research and teaching.
 

Forbes article mentions a 2018 lecture by James Anderson.

GeoSci Asst. Prof. Sunyoung Park says Earth's mantle isn't liquid, but it's less rigid than sinking oceanic crust, adding that "in geological timescale[s], it's almost acting like a fluid, although it's solid rock."

GeoSci Prof. David Jablonski says, "The standard estimate is that 99.9% of species that have ever lived are extinct," but adds that that is "a crude approximation."

To understand how RBFOX2 modifies cell function, Chemist Chuan He and colleagues grew malignant hematopoietic stem cells with RBFOX2 deactivated in petri dishes and found that the proliferative capacity of the cells was markedly reduced, indicating that there might be higher expression of RBFOX2 in leukemia cells.

Kids learn to see themselves in STEM at annual event, which drew more than 4,500 attendees.

CBS News Chicago reports on 2023 Nobel laureate Moungi Bawendi being a UChicago alum.

Crain's Chicago Business reports on Prof. Rina Foygel Barber being awarded a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation.

In an Axios article, UChicago President Paul Alivisatos comments on the combined efforts of UChicago and University of Illinois to land a new flagship federal center of advanced semiconductor research and manufacturing, saying, "We have a long and deep history of being at the forefront of the study of quantum science, physics and chemistry."