News: Faculty

The Center for Living Systems (CLS) is a new NSF Physics Frontier Center led by Margaret Gardel and Arvind Murugan, awarded $15.5 million to study the intersection of biology and physics. The center is currently accepting applications to its postdoctoral fellowship program.

The Mazziotti group observed a transition and coexistence between superconductor and exciton condensate states in a cuprate-like modeled material. Their publication in Physical Review Materials suggests that, in the three-band Hubbard model, increasing electron-electron repulsion moves the system’s state from superconductor to exciton condensate.

Quantum Flute

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.

A general theory of non-reciprocal matter.

The Vitelli and Littlewood groups recently published a groundbreaking general theory of non-reciprocal matter using exceptional points and illustrated with examples found in simple systems such as groups of interacting toy robots. The work was original published in Nature in April and is now receiving wider attention via WIRED. Please see the links on the right and the UChicago News story as well.

Wired Story
Publication

Recognized by Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

David DeMille, University of Chicago and the James Franck Institute, is among five physics and astronomy researchers to win Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s competitive Cottrell Plus SEED (Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery) Awards for 2021.

DeMille received a SEED Award for "Developing a New Tabletop-scale Approach to Detect Particles One Million Times More Massive than the Higgs Boson.""

SEED Awards offer Cottrell Scholars the opportunity to start creative new research or educational activities, granting $50,000 for research projects.

Research Corporation for Science Advancement was founded in 1912 and funds basic research in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, physics, and related fields) at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

The National Academy of Sciences recently published a biographical memoir of the remarkable scientific and personal life of R. Stephen Berry, the James Franck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and integral part of the James Franck Institute from 1964 to 2020. The memoir was written by Stuart A. Rice, Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry and the James Franck Institute, and Joshua Jortner, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the Tel Aviv University. The memoir can be found online at the National Academy of Sciences and by direct download. More information about Prof. Berry's influential life and career can be found at the University of Chicago News.

National Academy of Sciences
Download Memoir