News: Awards

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.

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.

Promoting new research directions in the physical and mathematical sciences.

Professor Cheng Chin has received the ’21–’22 Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award, a Divisional honor that provides $100,000 for intellectually exciting and innovative research ventures that enable new research directions.

Chin joined the University of Chicago in 2005 and has been a full professor in the Department of Physics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the James Franck Institute since 2012. He is a pioneer in using ultracold atoms to study the quantum phenomena that underlie the behavior of other particles in the universe.

“I am very excited about this generous support from the PSD, and especially from Stuart Rice,” he said. “The fund will enable a brand new research line into molecular quantum matter, on which my students and I are very excited to begin.”

The Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award was established by the family of Stuart Alan Rice, the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry and former chairman of the Department of Chemistry and dean of the Physical Sciences (1981-1995). It is awarded annually to promote new directions of research in the physical and mathematical sciences at the University of Chicago.