News: 2024

A New York Times article highlights GS Prof. David Keith's Climate Systems Engineering Initiative, mentioning a recent two-day workshop on glacial geoengineering hosted by the initiative, and quotes Professor Emeritus Doug MacAyeal on how predictions have changed since the 1970s.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Anna Wuttig has received an NSF CAREER Award, which supports junior faculty in the sciences through the Faculty Early Career Development Program. The highly regarded honor is bestowed annually upon researchers who have demonstrated exceptional promise in their respective fields. For Wuttig, it carries with it a five-year grant to support the project within the Chemical Catalysis Program of the Chemistry Division.

Long-time PSD Council member and chair Mihir Worah, PhD’95, and spouse Anupama Worah are the first donors to meet the Wallman fundraising challenge, endowing the Worah Family Chair in the Physical Sciences Division.

The University of Chicago will present an honorary degree to distinguished scholar Bernd Sturmfels at its Convocation ceremony in June 2024, in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of mathematics.

Charles Mark Lewis, PhD'23 (Physics), is recognized for "the development of techniques expanding the low-energy reach of new particle detector technologies, with applications in neutrino physics, dark matter searches, and the study of charged-lepton flavor violating modes of muon decay."

Asst. Prof. Anna Wuttig and her team found a way to use electricity to boost a type of chemical reaction often used in synthesizing new candidates for pharmaceutical drugs, which may lay the foundation for greener chemistry.

Cancers are often driven by proteins created by specific oncogenes. Drugs aimed at these proteins take advantage of their surface configurations to latch on and prevent them from interfering with cells, but some families of proteins lack pockets or crevices on their surfaces that the drugs can use. Attacking them is like climbing up a wall with no footholds. For decades, these proteins have been considered “undruggable,” but chemist Raymond Moellering is working to change that.

Three computer science professors have received named professorships: Henry Hoffmann, Bo Li, and Ce Zhang.

In a WBEZ Morning Edition audio segment, astrophysicist Jacob Bean discusses the initial research frenzy following the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and the process of settling into a reasonable pace.

In a NYT article, astrophysicist Daniel Holz discusses new research that shows black holes may form in different ways than expected.

The three-year, $450,000 grant will fund Rand’s work on formal verification of the ZX-calculus, a graphical system for representing quantum programs.

Prof. Abigail Vieregg discusses the possible construction of a new particle collider, one more powerful than any ever created, at Fermilab.

Photo by Ryan Postel / Fermilab

The PSD January Spotlight is Josh Kurutz, NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) Facility Manager, Chemistry Department.

"My most recent but ill-fated creative project was a ballet about chemical elements."