News: 2023

The National Science Foundation has awarded UChicago’s M-STAR Center of Chemical Innovation program $1.8 million as a Phase 1 Research Center. M-STAR, which is short for MXene Synthesis, Tunability and Reactivity, will be designed as a incubator of MXene study and a major nexus for materials science research.

Department of Energy national labs are laying groundwork for a potential multi-billion dollar initiative to develop artificial intelligence tools for scientific and security applications, leveraging its advanced computing capabilities. Computer scientist and head of Argonne’s Computing, Environment, and Life Sciences Directorate Rick Stevens participated in the Senate-wide briefing.

Meet Joalda Morancy, AB’22 (Astronomy & Astrophysics), children’s author and aerospace engineer.

Doctoral students sum up years of work in 180 seconds.

Photography by Jason Smith

Seven of the world’s largest mirrors will search the Universe for life beyond Earth.

In a Wired article, GeoSci assoc. prof. Elisabeth Moyer discusses the impact of climate change on precipitation, saying, “the very physics that gives us the greenhouse effect also makes the planet shed more of this energy by evaporation. And because whatever goes up must come down, that means we also get more rain.”

GeoSci associate professor Elisabeth Moyer says "a cheap battery would remove the biggest hurdle to a renewables transition,” adding that the materials availability is also still an issue and the technology does ultimately generate waste.

Christian Mitchell, vice president for civic engagement, discusses the South Side Science Festival.

Jas Brooks, Kuntai Du, Miao Li, Madeleine Roberts, and Divij Sinha were selected to the prestigious program’s Class of 2024.

The Hill article mentions UChicago's quantum partnerships with University of Tokyo and Tohoku University.

Annie Xie grew up in Guilford, CT. She’s in her third year at UChicago as a PhD student in Statistics, where she has been working to develop statistical methods for analyzing and identifying patterns in genetics data.

Geophysical Sciences grad student Freya Chen shares how she spent her summer tapping glaciers to test seismological models.

Photo: Jérémie Bonneau (left) and Oscar Sepulveda perform an active seismic source experiment. Image courtesy of Yulia Antropova.

PSD's September spotlight is Maureen Searcy, Assistant Director of Content

Please welcome the faculty joining the Physical Sciences Division in the ’23–24 academic year.

UChicago investigators have made progress with the synthesis of novel compounds, hybrid MXenes, that combine organic and inorganic materials, claims a new paper authored by The Talapin Group that was recently published in Nature Chemistry.