News

2025

Tian Group Introduces Novel Hydrogel

March 31, 2025

The Tian group introduced a hydrogel derived from the malva nut with multiple biomedical applications, from wound care to ECG readings. Their publication in Matter discusses the sustainable extraction process used isolate the nut’s polysaccharides and demonstrates its enhanced performance in biosignal recording and tissue regeneration.


Vitelli Group Designs Compound Robot with Odd Elasticity

March 31, 2025

The Vitelli Group designed a compound robot which use principles of odd elasticity and active materials to enable decentralized locomotion across challenging terrains. Their paper in Nature explains how each part exerts nonsymmetric and nonreciprocal forces to create a robust collective machine that senses and responds to its environment.
 


Greg Voth Receives 2025 ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry

March 31, 2025


April 3: Alain Aspect To Give Fano Lecture

March 12, 2025


Arvind Murugan Awarded 2025 Tel Aviv University International Prize

March 12, 2025

Arvind Murugan was awarded the 2025 Tel Aviv University International Prize in Biophysics for his "pivotal contributions to understanding the informatics of various biological processes, and specifically for leveraging molecular complexity of disordered systems for efficient physical computation and learning." The prize awards researchers for originality and excellence in the field of Biophysics.


2 JFI Faculty Receive Sloan Fellowships

February 28, 2025

Both Sarah King and Luca Delacrétaz were awarded 2025 Sloan Research Fellowships, which recognize faculty for their creativity and innovation as well as potential for leadership in their fields.


Laura Gagliardi Named to 2025 Solvay Chair in Chemistry

January 31, 2025

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2024

Engel Group Observes Unexpected Behavior in Electrons Passing Through Conical Intersection

December 31, 2024

An Engel group article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters describes unexpected behavior observed in electrons passing through a conical intersection. They found the final electronic population had drastically different vibrational coherences from those it started with, a first-of-its-kind observation that is  unexplained by the semiclassical theory on conical intersections.


Paul Alivisatos awarded Enrico Fermi Presidential Award

December 30, 2024


Scherer Group Describes Entropy Production of Overdamped, Non-Conservative, N-body systems

October 31, 2024

The Scherer group introduced a method of calculating the entropy production rate of overdamped, non-conservative, N-body systems. Their article in Physical Review E uses a novel collective mode decomposition and force field decomposition to show that the rates of entropy production and power dissipation are equal in these systems, in agreement with a theorem by Seifert.


Zoe Yan Awarded 2024 Packard Fellowship

October 31, 2024

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$4.8 million grant from NIH BRAIN Initiative for novel PEEM Microscope

October 31, 2024

Sarah King and collaborators at UChicago, Chicago State University, and University of Illinois Chicago were awarded $4.8 million from the NIH BRAIN Initiative toward developing a novel PEEM microscope designed for brain connectomics.


King Group Introduces Functionalizing Method for TMDs

September 30, 2024

The King group introduced a strategy for functionalizing a sulfur-containing transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) with multimolecular architectures.
Their article in ACS Applied Optical Materials describes how molecular adsorption in the growth and characterization of ion-linked bilayers offers a new pathway to introduce complex molecules onto sulfur-containing TMDs.


Paul Alivisatos awarded Kavli Prize in Nanoscience

July 31, 2024

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Steven Sibener Elected to the Royal Society of Chemistry

April 29, 2024