News

National Cancer Institute awards $66M to renew clinical trial center at UChicago

06/04/2026 - 04:30pm

The University of Chicago has been awarded $66 million in renewal funding from the National Cancer Institute to support the NRG Oncology Statistics and Data Management Center, which provides expertise in biostatistics, data management, and operational support for national clinical trials.

NRG Oncology is a member of the National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network program, consisting of five network groups that conduct clinical trials across a spectrum of adult and pediatric cancers.

The Statistics and Data Management Center for NRG Oncology currently has over 100 active trials developing therapies for brain, head and neck, gastrointestinal, prostate, bladder, lung, gynecologic, and breast cancers. There are also trials designed to reduce side effects and adverse events, as well as cancer prevention, and cancer care delivery.

In the past, these trials have delivered real improvements to treatment and patient quality of life—in several instances, changing the recommended standard practice across the field.

“The National Clinical Trials Network program is a critical component of our national cancer therapeutic, translational science, and prevention program, producing practice-changing research for all types of cancer,” said James Dignam, Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, who will again serve as the Principal Investigator and Executive Director of the Statistics and Data Management Center.

The NRG Oncology Statistics and Data Management Center comprises about 90 individuals over four collaborating institutions. It is responsible for trial design in collaboration with investigators; data collection and management; safety and efficacy monitoring; auditing and quality control of data and practices; and trial reporting.

In addition, the center undertakes methodologic research pertinent to clinical trials, leads investigator education in trial conduct, and collaborates on the group’s broader research agenda, including cancer translational science.

“Clinical trials are central to the development of novel and life-saving cancer detection, prevention or treatment strategies,” said Kunle Odunsi, director of the UChicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dean for Oncology in the Biological Sciences Division. “The conduct of NCI-supported trials involves a complex system of designing, reviewing and initiating studies. As such, UChicago is proud to house the SDMC, which makes these clinical trials possible.”

To date, the program has resulted in improvements for multiple types of cancer treatments. For example, trials demonstrated that patients with prostrate cancer could halve the number of radiation treatments without loss of effectiveness—a substantial improvement for patient quality of life, and one that has been adopted as a standard of care. Another trial found a particular therapy course substantially improved outcomes for women with advanced or recurring endometrial cancer; it has also been widely adopted.

Leadership in cancer research

UChicago is uniquely positioned to lead this effort. Many members of the UChicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center serve as key leaders and trial investigators across the program, including NRG Oncology; Dignam has extensive experience in multi-center clinical trials spanning over 25 years, including his former position as the Executive Director of the Statistics Center for the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (now a member of NRG Oncology) from 2009–2014.

UChicago collaborators Mei Polley and Ted Karrison are experienced clinical trialists with deep expertise in relevant trial methodology and conduct, as well as the specific disease areas (brain and prostate cancer, respectively) in which they engage for NRG Oncology. Other SDMC members at the UChicago Department of Public Health Sciences include Eric Polley, Associate Professor, and Nika Agrawal, Project Manager/Analyst.

The six-year grant cycle began March 1, 2026. In the previous program cycle, NRG Oncology produced over 300 publications, including more than 40 articles addressing statistical methodology relevant to clinical trials.

—Adapted from an article published by the Biological Sciences Division.

Two University of Chicago professors elected to British Royal Society

Maureen Searcy — 06/04/2026 - 09:26am

University of Chicago professors Frank Calegari and Young-Kee Kim have been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences.

Since its founding in 1660, the Royal Society’s purpose has been to recognize, promote, and support excellence in science and encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

This year, over 90 researchers from around the world in all areas of science, engineering, and medicine were elected Fellows or Foreign Members of the Society for their outstanding contributions to science.

“Our Fellowship is strengthened not only by individual distinction, but by the diversity of perspectives and experiences its members bring,” said Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society. “This incoming cohort highlights the truly international character of contemporary science and underscores the vital role that plays in achieving breakthroughs that benefit us all.”

Frank Calegari is professor and associate chair of the Department of Mathematics. His research focuses on the area of algebraic number theory. He is particularly interested in the Langlands program, a set of mathematical ideas that has been called the "grand unified theory of mathematics.”

In 2021, Calegari and two colleagues discovered a groundbreaking proof of what’s known as the unbounded denominators conjecture. In 2024, he and his collaborators created a new technique to prove certain numbers are irrational—significantly improving upon the previous method, which had been around since the 1970s.

Calegari is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and a recipient of an American Institute of Mathematics Fellowship, a Sloan Fellowship, and a Simons Fellowship in Mathematics. He was a plenary speaker at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians and received the 2026 AMS Frank Nelson Cole Prize for Number Theory.

Young-Kee Kim is the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute. Much of her research seeks to understand the origin of mass for elementary particles—the most fundamental constituents of matter—through the Higgs mechanism, using the world’s highest-energy colliders.

Kim has made seminal contributions to precision measurements of the W boson and top quark masses at Fermilab’s CDF experiment, and subsequently to studies of Higgs boson properties, including its decay modes and self-interactions, at CERN’s ATLAS experiment. Her research is guided by the principle that a comprehensive understanding of the Higgs mechanism requires the synthesis of these complementary measurements.

Kim, who served as co-leader of the CDF experiment in 2004–2006 and President of the American Physical Society in 2024, is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Korean Academy of Science and Technology. She is also a fellow of the APS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She received the Ho-Am Prize, the Arthur L. Kelly UChicago Faculty Prize, and the Korean American Pioneer Award.

“Professor Calegari has built mathematical bridges with striking originality, and Professor Kim has made great strides in understanding how fundamental particles acquired mass,” said Ka Yee C. Lee, dean of the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. “We are delighted that the Royal Society has recognized their vital contributions to their fields.”

Class of 2026 looks back on the journeys to Convocation

06/03/2026 - 03:30pm

Each spring, thousands of University of Chicago graduates follow in a single procession across the Main Quadrangles toward Convocation. Yet each student arrived at that moment though uniquely distinct paths.

Looking back on their intellectual journeys at UChicago, several members of the Class of 2026 reflected on how the University shaped them—and where their careers might take them next.

Some developed a space satellite or studied thorny municipal finance issues. Others worked in courtrooms and clinics or chased research questions across continents. Below, these soon-to-be graduates share their stories.

Ingrid Appen, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering

As she prepares to receive her bachelor’s in molecular engineering, Ingrid Appen already knows her long-term goal—returning to UChicago PME in a slightly different role.

“I would love to come back to UChicago PME as a professor one day,” she said.

After Convocation, she will be spending one year as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Taiwan before starting a chemical engineering Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She hopes to study sustainable polymers, the subject of her work as an undergraduate researcher in Prof. Stuart Rowan’s lab, but is open to wherever her UChicago PME education takes her.

“I learned more here than I ever have before, both about engineering and about working hard, getting through failures, and relying on friends and professors,” Appen said. “I am so grateful to this program and highly recommend applying. For first-year molecular engineering majors, my top pieces of advice are: Go to office hours, study with friends and try out research for at least a quarter or two!”

Shaleyah Carter, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice

As a first-generation college student, Shaleyah Carter understands the transformative power of education and the importance of creating opportunities for others.

She came to the Crown Family School with a clear sense of purpose: to build a career dedicated to advancing social justice and supporting young people.

Carter is graduating with a master’s degree in social work, social policy and social administration from the Crown Family School and will earn a Professional Educator License in school social work.

A graduate of Howard University, Carter chose social work because it offered an opportunity to serve communities and address the inequities that shape people’s lives. Her commitment to creating a more just and humane society led her to pursue graduate study focused on developing the skills and experience needed to support youth and families.

During her time at the Crown Family School, Carter embraced opportunities to lead, learn and engage with the broader community. She credits organizations such as the Black Student Association and the Leadership Institute with helping shape her experience and providing opportunities to grow as a leader.

Through her involvement across campus, she challenged herself in new ways and gained valuable experience that strengthened both her personal and professional development.

Carter is particularly passionate about disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline and supporting the mental health and well-being of young people. She hopes to create programs that empower youth, amplify their voices and provide the resources they need to thrive.

Her accomplishments include receiving several recognitions, including the Community and Leadership Award, honors for her contributions to Student Government and the Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Committee, and the Student Organization of the Year Award for her work with the Black Student Association.

Following graduation, Carter plans to pursue a career in school social work, community programming or forensic social work.

Reflecting on her experience at Crown, Carter offers simple advice to future students: “Get involved. You get out of it what you put into it.”

Ayo George, Harris School of Public Policy

When Ayo George graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in political science, he knew he was interested in cities and urban policy, but was still looking for the right way to make a difference.

After working at the Yale University Program on Financial Stability, where he researched financial crises and macroeconomic policy, he began to see how essential finance is to public policy, especially at the local level.

That path eventually led him to municipal finance and then to Prof. Justin Marlowe’s Public Money Pod, which inspired him to apply to Harris.

“I came here to be less afraid of numbers—and I’m happy with the results,” George said.

As he graduates with his master’s degree, George said he found the quantitative foundation he was looking for, building skills to understand finance, regulation and public markets at a time when data and AI are reshaping how policy work is done. He was especially drawn to courses that challenged him to think about regulators not simply as rule-setters, but as actors responding to incentives.

“I think that’s one of the things Harris really excels at,” George said. “It gives you this really strong foundation from which to build.”

During his time at Harris, he worked as a research fellow with the Water Finance Exchange, studying local infrastructure financing and learning how municipalities access grants and revolving loan funds. He later interned with the Metropolitan Planning Council, researching lead service line replacement in Chicago and the Great Lakes region.

“Water is something that is a marker of development,” George said. “Having a system where you get all your citizens clean water is one of these basic markers of being a developed country, and yet that’s still a challenge that we face in the richest country in the world.”

Outside the classroom, George spent time at the Institute of Politics, attending fellows’ seminars and traveling with classmates to knock doors in Michigan and Wisconsin during the 2024 election. He also built community through intramural sports, especially soccer, and still hopes to see Harris challenge the Law School’s dominance in the graduate Phoenix Cup.

Originally from Cranston, Rhode Island, he was ultimately won over by Chicago. After graduation, he will stay in the city as a senior analyst at S&P Global, where he focuses on utilities, including water and sewer systems, and plans to continue building expertise in public power.

“It really aligns with how I viewed what I wanted to do coming out of undergrad,” George said. “I like the application of municipal finance to something so basic as water.”

Connor Horn, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering

Connor Horn is already in his next role. As co-founder and CEO of K1 Semiconductor, the Ph.D. candidate is bringing a technology developed in Prof. Supratik Guha’s lab to revolutionize semiconductor manufacturing.

“We are using a semiconductor wafer splitting technology to upend the traditional wasteful and restrictive processes for semiconductor device manufacturing,” Horn said.

K1, which Horn co-founded with Guha, fellow UChicago PME Ph.D. students Xella Doi and Sagar Kumar Seth and UChicago Booth School of Business student Joe McDonald, is already turning heads in the startup world. It has received a slate of recognitions, including taking second place at the Polsky New Venture Challenge and joining the Chicago Quantum Exchange and the inaugural cohort of the Alchemist Chicago Accelerator.

Horn and Doi were also named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in the Manufacturing & Industry category, two of the seven UChicago PME-affiliated young researchers to be honored in the 2026 list.

Horn said UChicago PME’s interdisciplinary lens and focus on solving the world’s most challenging problems made his time here “rewarding and fun due to the freedom to develop and pursue many new ideas.”

“The scientific directions pursued by UChicago PME researchers are uniquely shaped by a collaborative approach to tackling real-world grand challenges,” Horn said. “My Ph.D. work began as a very pie-in-the-sky idea that did not fit neatly within the silo of a traditional department. With the support of UChicago PME I was able to pursue this unusual project which ultimately led to very exciting results.”

Seth Knights, College

Seth Knights came to UChicago planning to study computer science, but his longtime interest in space began pulling him in another direction.

Near the end of his first year, Knights joined what was then UChicago’s chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, a small group with fewer than 10 active members. The group had been launching model rockets—soon they began discussing the possibility of building a satellite.

Since its formation, Knights has helped transform that small startup organization into the UChicago Space Program. As president, lead engineer and a founding member, he has created something entirely new at the University: the first student-run organization dedicated to developing a space satellite. Now with 130 members across three divisions, the group focuses on rocketry, satellites and scientific instrumentation.

As an engineer but also as a leader and mentor, Knights has inspired fellow students to ask questions, take intellectual risks and work together to create something new.

“To inspire others is to show them that they are more capable of understanding and of creating than they may think, and my goal has always been to create a space where this self-discovery is possible,” said Knights.

“At their best, science and engineering are collective disciplines, ones that require us to respond to, critique and engage with our own and each other’s ideas. Ideas that we must be bold enough to share but humble enough to revise.”

For Knights, the space program’s growth matters. There isn’t a major focused on engineering for space, so he and the team built their own path.

Lessons from his experience with the organization and his wider journey through the College will stay with him after he leaves Hyde Park.

“I think UChicago really challenged me to think and to care deeply—whether it’s in my classes and the reading I'm doing, or the work that I'm doing outside of class with [the space program] or other groups,” he said.

After graduation, Knights will begin a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he plans to continue studying optics.

Kassidy Mahoney, Law School

Kassidy Mahoney always knew she wanted a career that involved helping people. Her lightbulb moment to do that through lawyering came when she read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative—which detailed the author’s work defending the marginalized, the incarcerated and the wrongly condemned.

“I believe each of us has a responsibility to use whatever skills we have to help those most in need in our communities, and I knew that going to law school would give me the skills to be able to do this in the best way possible,” she said.

As a student, Mahoney did not waste any time putting her budding legal skills to use. Starting her 1L year, she sought out pro bono opportunities to help those impacted by civil rights and criminal justice issues. She got involved in organizations such as Life After Justice, the Juvenile Law Center and the National Lawyers Guild, a leftist legal professional organization. She spent time working in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office—where she’ll be working after graduation—and in the Law School’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Clinic.

Mahoney clocked in nearly 900 pro bono service hours in her three years as a student, more than anyone in her graduating class. Her dedication earned her the Law School’s Pro Bono Award of Excellence in May 2026.

“I think it’s easy for students to revert to the safety within our school’s walls and forget that there are real crises occurring outside every day. But we can’t be insulated,” she said. “I couldn’t simply attend my classes and debate the meaning of justice, equality and freedom without feeling as though such conversations call for us to use these lessons outside the classroom.”

Alex Rosencrance, Pritzker School of Medicine

Growing up in the rural Appalachian town of Elkins, West Virginia, Alex Rosencrance, AB’22, knew leaving home for college would be difficult. But he worked multiple jobs throughout high school and as an undergraduate in the College to make it happen.

As chair of the Rural Student Alliance, he sought to increase access to private higher education for students from rural backgrounds.

When it came time to graduate, Rosencrance knew he wanted to stay at UChicago, which had come to feel like home, and he chose to attend the Pritzker School of Medicine. He continued his advocacy for rural communities as chair of the Rural Medical Student Association and JOURNEES, for which he led a service trip to Elkins, exposing classmates to rural health care.

While developing his leadership skills as a member of Pritzker’s admissions and Curriculum Review committees, Rosencrance also forged a deeper bond with the communities surrounding UChicago as someone tasked with caring for them.

“At Pritzker there is a shared sense of responsibility to the South Side that is both inspiring and deeply meaningful,” Rosencrance said. “This shared commitment helped me develop both the skills and perspective needed to care for the underserved.”

Rosencrance specifically sought opportunities to support LGBTQ+ patients, and his research with Assoc. Prof. Julia Rosebush led to a peer-reviewed publication on provider barriers to prescribing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for adolescents to prevent HIV transmission.

Next, Rosencrance will continue his pediatrics training as a resident physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

“UChicago gave me a framework for how I want to move through the world: boldly, curiously and unapologetically myself,” Rosencrance said. “I was surrounded by people who will change the world in their own unique way, and knowing that pushes me to dream bigger for myself.”

Ruby Velez, College

Ruby Velez wants a future focused on helping people.

Originally from Tucson, Arizona, she’s preparing to step into a career shaped by law, public health and international human rights. A participant in the University’s BA/MA program, she will graduate with degrees in both human rights and Law, Letters, and Society alongside a master’s in international relations.

“I think what really changes at this school is your belief of what is possible,” said Velez. “You don’t really realize what you can actually accomplish until you’re given the resources.”

A major influence in her academic journey was the Pozen Center for Human Rights, where she researched corporate accountability and strategic litigation, working with legal practitioners in Colombia and South Africa.

Beyond campus, Velez has been involved with numerous advocacy groups, including the Latino Policy Forum, The People’s Lobby and the Jail Solidarity Network.

Much of her growth was shaped through the UChicago Harm Reduction Project’s Appalseed Fund initiative. Supported by the Stamps Scholars Program, Velez and fellow students traveled to Berea, Kentucky, to support overdose prevention and housing stability initiatives. What began as a focus on Narcan distribution evolved into providing security deposit assistance and short-term financial support for those transitioning out of homelessness.

At the same time, she emphasized that some of her most meaningful intellectual growth came from small spaces on campus.

“I’ve had some of the most world-changing conversations in the Cobb Café basement,” she said.

After graduation, Velez plans to travel to Hong Kong to research alternative treatment approaches for opioid use disorder while continuing work with the Clean Lead Coalition, a policy initiative focused on reducing industrial lead pollution in countries such as Nigeria and Ghana.

As commencement approaches, Velez credits mentors, peers and organizers for shaping her journey. She said her father’s experience navigating undocumented status and financial barriers profoundly influenced her interest in immigration and justice systems.

“It’s not just me graduating,” she said. “It’s a culmination of collective work.”

Anna Zeisel, the Divinity School

Anna Zeisel came to the Divinity School by a path she didn't expect. Already drawn to work as a “death doula,” accompanying people through the final chapter of their lives, she learned that chaplaincy training was open to her as a non-Christian student.

She was enrolled at a seminary when she discovered the Divinity School. Since she was already living in Chicago, the choice felt clear.

“I heard that the University of Chicago has a nice divinity school,” she recalled, with characteristic understatement, “and that's how I ended up here.”

What she found exceeded the description. Zeisel completed her first hospital chaplaincy internship during her time earning her master’s at the Divinity School and emerged from the experience certain of her direction. She has now completed her thesis, “On Longing, Absence, and the Uses of Traditional Prayer in Contemporary Jewish Life,” and will be a clinical pastoral education resident at Rush University Medical Center, working toward board certification next year.

The Divinity School also reshaped how she understands herself. Surrounded by students from a wide range of traditions, many of whom were actively renegotiating their beliefs while in the program, Zeisel found herself identifying more deeply with her own Jewish background than before.

“I feel so lucky to look around and know that I'm going to know the future of religious leadership in this country,” she said. “I trust them, and I think they're amazing people.”

By Andrew Haffner, Paul Dailing, Tonishea Jackson, Colin Terrill, Lily Maxson, MacKenzie Tucker\, Nadia Alfadel Coloma, Tyler Lockman and Erin Keane Scott

“ElectrolyteGPT” can generate new formulations for battery development

Paul Dailing — 06/03/2026 - 02:10pm

Battery electrolytes aren’t just one chemical, but a complex mixture of salts, solvents and additives interacting and reacting with each other.

Artificial intelligence has made great headway in helping select ideal materials to go into that chemical soup. But a team from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering is using AI to generate the entire formulation, balancing the complicated tradeoffs and interactions that go into the electrolytes that make batteries possible.

The research, published in JACS Au, is the next step in the Amanchukwu Lab’s ongoing development of an AI for battery work, which they’ve nicknamed “ElectrolyteGPT.”

“Next-generation battery electrolytes must meet multiple, often conflicting property requirements,” said Jaemin Kim, SM’25, the first author on the study. “With the model’s capability of generating outputs under diverse conditions, ElectrolyteGPT is able to generate novel candidates satisfying the desired properties simultaneously.”

The AI doesn’t just set the ingredients, but the concentrations, mixture ratios and other facets of the blend, hitting targets the researchers set on everything from conductivity to stability to viscosity.

Synthesizing the AI’s recommendations found several novel compositions that performed as well as top-of-the-line electrolytes in lithium metal batteries. It’s an important step toward the long-term goal of finding electrolytes that outperform the current best, said corresponding author Neubauer Family Asst. Prof. Chibueze Amanchukwu.

“We had a number of compositions that performed on par with the state of the art, and so that was exciting for us,” Amanchukwu said. “We can generate compositions that can mimic what some of the best scientists have done, but there’s still lots of work ahead.”

Exploring a vast chemical space

Many estimate the number of potential molecules for battery electrolytes is 10 to the 60th power—more than all the stars in the sky. Exploring each of those molecules for battery components, cancer drugs or other previously undreamed materials is simply beyond the human lifespan.

That’s just the molecules themselves, not the practically infinite possible ways to combine them in different formulations.

“While it’s infeasible to explore the entire near-infinite electrolyte space, generative AI can navigate the ‘unmapped’ areas of chemistry and generate a molecule that has never been synthesized before,” Kim said.

The AI generates theoretical molecules at a rate human researchers could never match, pulling ones it “thinks,” based on training data, would be good for a particular purpose. People then lab-test the materials the AI found, the same they would test a material a researcher suggested.

AI is often used for drug discovery, which set up an early hurdle for Amanchukwu’s team. Most existing GPT models were created to find molecules that make good drugs, not good batteries.

“If you use what is available in the literature, it will generate drug-like molecules. That’s not relevant for us,” Amanchukwu said. “We curated a data set that has electrolyte-relevant compounds so that the GPT model only knows about electrolytes. Then if you say, ‘Generate new solvent molecules,’ it generates compounds that look like they could be electrolytes.”

Next, they had to train the AI to generate only electrolyte materials that hit certain parameters. There’s no point in training an AI to create low-performing batteries, so they set standards for ionic conductivity, oxidative stability, Coulombic efficiency and viscosity.

So far, this is all becoming established practice in the cutting-edge field of AI for materials discovery. The innovation of this new research was inventing a new line notation called the fLine.

Inventing the fLine

Line notations are a way of describing complex chemical structures using language a computer understands. For example, calling sodium chloride “salt” would get the point across to a person but a machine would be confused by all the other possible salts in the world.

In SMILES, one of the most common chemical languages, sodium chloride would be [Na+].[Cl-], a few keystrokes that transmit a massive amount of information.

Based on SMILES, fLine is a new language the team developed that describes not only structure, but also includes notations for solvent ratio, salt concentrations, temperature and the other moving parts that go into a mixture. It could also be adapted to include variables such as current density and capacity if needed as well as other chemical languages beyond SMILES.

This allows an AI to understand the entirety of an electrolyte, not only the chemicals that go into it.

“That is useful for not just electrolytes. It is useful for mixtures in general,” Amanchukwu said. “Now you can actually generate a complete electrolyte formulation with multiple different salts, multiple different solvents at different concentrations and at different mixture ratios.”

Amanchukwu said this is an important step toward the ultimate goal: truly generative electrolyte AI.

“Right now, even with the limited data as well as the limited parameters that we run, we can actually generate compositions that we experiment in. We can verify the AI’s theoretical suggestions in the real world,” he said. “We are interested in seeing if we can make these models bigger and better.”

Citation: "Generative Electrolyte Solvent and Formulation Discovery," Kim et al, JACS Au, April 9, 2026. DOI: 10.1021/jacsau.5c01628

—Adapted from an article first published by Pritzker Molecular Engineering.

Two scholars to receive honorary degrees at UChicago’s 2026 Convocation

06/03/2026 - 12:12pm

Editor's note: It was previously announced that Shankar Balasubramanian of the University of Cambridge would be among this year's recipients. His honorary degree will be conferred at a later date.

The University of Chicago will award honorary degrees to two distinguished scholars on June 6 during its Convocation celebration of the Class of 2026: economic and legal scholar Louis Kaplow and historian and archaeologist Greg Woolf.

Louis Kaplow, the Finn M.W. Caspersen and Household International Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

Kaplow has made groundbreaking contributions to the study of law and economics, taxation and public economics, industrial organization and antitrust law, and welfare economics. His foundational work has employed formal and informal economic reasoning to analyze the effects of legal rules and institutions as well as to provide new conceptual frameworks that revise central legal and economic understandings. His most recent scholarship rethinks optimal income taxation, merger analysis, and competition regulation of dominant firms.

Kaplow is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received lifetime achievement awards for scholarship from the National Tax Association and from the American Law and Economics Association.

Greg Woolf, the Leon Levy Director and Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Studies in the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU, will receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Woolf is regarded as one of the world’s most distinguished scholars of ancient history, whose research greatly impacted our understanding of the Roman world and life within ancient empires. His pioneering work integrated archaeological data into the study of provincial cultures, and it used climate science, evolutionary theory and social anthropology in the history of urbanism. His first book, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (1998), helped define the field of humanistic scholarship, addressing the history of cultural change in a province of the Roman empire. He is currently researching mobility and migration in the ancient world, and his latest book is entitled The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History.

Woolf currently serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Roman Archaeology and is a former editor of the Journal of Roman Studies. He is a fellow of the British Academy, of the Societies of Antiquaries of Scotland and of London, and a member of Academia Europea.

Convocation activities to celebrate UChicago’s Class of 2026

06/02/2026 - 12:20pm

The University of Chicago community and its graduating students will celebrate Convocation this weekend with a series of events across campus honoring the Class of 2026.

The main University-wide ceremony will begin at 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 6, with a procession into the Main Quadrangles. During the traditional “calling together” of the UChicago community, President Paul Alivisatos will provide remarks and confer degrees to candidates.

This year’s Convocation faculty speaker is Prof. Alison LaCroix, a renowned scholar of U.S. legal history specializing in constitutional law, federalism, and 18th- and 19th-century legal thought.

On Friday, June 5, the College will celebrate the accomplishments of the Class of 2026 at Class Day. The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. and will feature addresses from David Auburn, AB’91, a playwright, screenwriter and director who won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize for his play Proof; as well as graduating College students Matteo Caloia, Ana Emilia Davalos and Vincent Li.

UChicago’s divisions and schools also will hold diploma and hooding ceremonies throughout the weekend. For those unable to attend, the Class Day and Convocation ceremonies will be webcast on the UChicago digital channels.

For more information, and a full schedule of ceremonies across campus, visit the Convocation website. Members of the University community, along with their family and friends, are invited to share photos, memories and congratulatory messages on social media using #UChicago2026.

UChicago to honor distinguished scholars

During the main Convocation ceremony on June 6, the University will recognize faculty members for excellence in teaching and mentorship with presentations of the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the Faculty Awards for Excellence in Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring. UChicago will also award honorary degrees to economic and legal scholar Louis Kaplow, and historian and archaeologist Greg Woolf.

Information for visitors

Please visit the Know Before You Go section of the Convocation website before arriving on campus. This resource contains important information about transportation, parking restrictions, road closures, shuttle service, venue access and other details to help you prepare for the weekend's events.

Guests attending the University-wide Convocation ceremony will enter the Main Quadrangles through one of three designated entrances and will proceed through a security screening process.

To help ensure a positive experience for all attendees, items that may obstruct the view of other guests or disrupt the ceremony are not permitted inside the Main Quadrangles.

Class Day speakers highlight communities built during their time at UChicago

Colin Terrill — 06/02/2026 - 09:45am

The University of Chicago will celebrate the newest graduates of the College one day before the 540th Convocation with its annual Class Day event.

The accomplishments and achievements of the Class of 2026 will be on full display when the event kicks off a celebratory weekend on Friday, June 5, at 2 p.m. on the Main Quadrangles. Matteo Caloia, Ana Emilia Davalos and Vincent Li were selected by their peers to speak on behalf of the graduating class while the keynote address will be delivered by award-winning playwright David Auburn, AB’91.

We talked to the three College Class Day speakers to learn more about them and the message they hope to deliver.

Matteo Caloia

What would incoming first-year Matteo Caloia want to hear before starting his UChicago journey? That is the question the fourth-year version of himself hopes to answer on Class Day.

Hailing from Washington, D.C., Caloia came to the University to play men’s soccer and was rewarded with a historic national championship after just four months in Hyde Park. Memorable as that was, it might be the people he met across campus that most stick with him.

“The quality of the people and the diversity of their interests and passions is incredible,” said Caloia. “The fact that people are so willing to have discussions while at the same time being open to those conversations having an impact on their own perspectives makes it a special place.”

His remarks were inspired by all the different people that he met on the way to Convocation. While on stage, he wants to point out the differences between a college graduate and a graduate of the College.

“Receiving your degree, no matter where it is from, is an incredible accomplishment,” Caloia said. “However, students here are so intellectually curious and they are able to spend four years with some of the smartest classmates and professors refining how and why you think, which is a skill that will last your entire life.”

An economics major, Caloia is also among the first cohort to leave the College with a minor in entrepreneurship—which he has already put to good use as the co-founder of (P)rind, a parmesan-rind-based snack. He is excited to be able to put classes aside and focus on his growing company, but he doesn’t plan on going too far.

“I’m staying in the city and hope to still be involved with the University in some capacity whether that is as a teacher’s assistant at Booth or helping out with the club soccer team,” Caloia said. “I truly do love UChicago, so there is no way I can stray too far from this place.”

Ana Emilia Davalos

Ana Emilia Davalos vividly remembers her first tour of campus. Now she is the one that gets to create those special moments for future students of the College.

“My first time on campus was over four years ago but it feels like it was just yesterday,” she said. “One day I’m listening to the guides share their experiences and the next I’m telling prospective families about how amazing and magical this school is.”

Being a tour guide is just one example of how Davalos has tried to get as much out of her UChicago experience as she can. Over the past four years, she has served as a peer advisor for Career Advancement, the president of the campus consulting club Pareto Solutions and a member of the Model UN. Davalos took on so much out of her desire to get to know her fellow classmates.

When she thinks about the time she has spent at UChicago, her first thought goes to the family she has formed here. The people she became close to helped her through major adversity and she wants to make sure that she is there for them.

“Sometimes I think that the world just waits to introduce you to people who are going to be in your life forever, and UChicago was that place where I got to meet all of them,” she said.

Davalos will focus on that as part of her speech—but also wants to shine a light on how impressive each single person on campus is.

“This is a place where you can look back at the end of a quarter and realize the amount of work you’ve been able to produce or the thoughts you’ve developed or the relationships you built,” she said. “Knowing how impressive the people around you are with achievements that could be very different from yours is something that has always left me with a feeling of wonder and awe.”

Davalos will use that sense of wonder as she travels the globe for the first few months after graduation before diving into the professional world back here in Chicago as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

Vincent Li

Vincent Li didn’t know what to expect when he arrived at UChicago. He knew he’d enjoy the intellectual rigor that the College was known for, but he was pleasantly surprised by what he experienced from the get-go.

“I realized early on that when you come to UChicago, you have a community form around you almost instantly,” he said.

Originally from China, Li found this helpful as it allowed him to develop a home away from home. He took that one step further when he became a resident assistant (RA) in his second year, fostering that same kind of environment for students living at Max Palevsky Residential Commons.

“I loved to host study breaks as an RA and always found myself having fun conversations with everyone that lived in Max P,” said Li. “Being able to serve as a mentor for my residents was one of my favorite things to do on campus.”

Serving as an RA also allowed Li to get to know everyone as an individual, not just a number or a nameless dot in a picture. It’s this lesson that he is going to try and convey to the audience come Class Day.

“On our first day on campus, we took a photo where everyone pretty much looks the same,” said Li. “However, we’re all vastly different. Those dots disappeared over our four years here and turned into a mosaic where you have individual pieces that form a beautiful image when put together.”

Li will be staying in Chicago after graduation and will put his economics and laws, letters and society double major to work as a consultant at Econic Partners. Until then, he wants to savor the last few days spent with the community that has helped him call UChicago home.

“We’re all so busy and caught up with work, so I’m going to slow down and enjoy this,” he said. “This is going to be my way of saying thank you to everybody.”

Class Day is planned with input from the graduating class, which also assists in choosing the student speakers on a multi-round submission process. The event will be webcast on the UChicago News site, as well as on the College’s Facebook page.

—This article was originally published on the UChicago College website.

Many planets might be ‘soot factories’, according to new study

Louise Lerner — 06/01/2026 - 11:44am

The astronauts circling Earth on the Artemis mission sent back beautiful clear photos of the continents, clouds and oceans.

But we might be the exception. Many planets in the universe may be hazed in clouds of soot, according to a new study by University of Chicago scientists.

Their analysis explains a curious trend seen by astronomers training telescopes on distant planets beyond our own solar system. Many of these worlds had atmospheres that returned strangely featureless readings.

According to the study, this may be because high temperatures and crushing pressures on these planets combine to make ‘soot factories,’ much like combustion engines here on Earth, which shroud the planets in smog.

“It’s like you have a natural diesel engine in the deep atmosphere of a planet,” said UChicago postdoctoral scholar Jeehyun Yang, first author on the paper.

The study is published May 18 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

A clue from another field

As scientists catalogue the planets in distant star systems, they have found more than a third of them are a distinct type that has no equivalent near us. These planets, which scientists have labeled as “mini-Neptunes,” are a little larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and are shrouded in thick atmospheres.

But that’s the end of what we definitively know about them. Since we cannot see faraway planets directly and must use clever workarounds to learn about them, more mysteries keep popping up as we build on our knowledge.

One such mystery: As the powerful new James Webb Space Telescope has added more and more information about these mini-Neptune planets, a strange but persistent curve in the data appeared. Planets in a particular temperature range seemed to have atmospheres that were very opaque.

No one knew for sure what might be in these atmospheres to cause these readings. But that curve rang a bell in Yang’s mind.

Yang had done his Ph.D. working on combustion engines as a chemical engineer. He had seen thousands of these curves. Jet engines, diesel engines, gasoline engines—they all produced a similar curve as you varied the temperatures at which they were burning.

“When you burn these fuels you get black smoke, and if you look at the particles with advanced microscopes you see these beautiful honeycomb-like structures,” Yang said.

These honeycombs are a class of molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and they result when hydrogen, carbon and oxygen interact at high temperatures. Combined, they make up the soot in truck exhaust or a car’s engine oil filter.

These temperatures didn’t exactly match those of the planets. But Yang and his collaborators knew the atmospheres on these planets are thick and heavy. They realized that deeper down, the pressure and temperatures would be higher—and those temperatures would match the conditions to produce soot.

“The peak exactly matches,” Yang said. “All of the current observations for planets match with our framework.”

The haziness may well be clouds of soot produced from deeper within the planets that floats to the surface.

‘A great case study’

To be clear, these soot-filled atmospheres would make an already distinctly uninhabitable planet even less attractive to humans. These mini-Neptunes orbit so close to their stars that they are swelteringly hot, and the surfaces are probably covered in seas of magma or under such high pressures that they harden like a diamond.

But the finding does intrigue scientists, because the ratio of carbon and oxygen on these planets can likely offer insight into how and where the planets originally formed in their solar systems.

The amounts of soot could serve as a proxy to measure these ratios more precisely—and thereby learn more about planetary formation, including more clues to narrow the search for habitable planets.

“As far as I know, this is the first time anyone has applied chemical engineering to the field of exoplanet study,” Yang said. “I think it’s a great case study that shows why having people from all different backgrounds can help us untangle these mysteries.”

UChicago Prof. Eliza Kempton and then-University of Maryland graduate student Arjun Savel were also co-authors on the paper.

Citation: “Sub-Neptunes as Soot Factories: Deep Atmosphere Hydrocarbon Formation and Quenching as the Origin of Sub-Neptune Aerosol Trends.” Yang, Kempton, and Savel, The Astrophysical Journal Letters, May 18, 2026.

Funding: NASA.

From Booth to Google: An alum learns to lead AI innovation

Hal Conick — 05/29/2026 - 12:04pm

Editor’s note: This story is part of Meet a UChicagoan, a regular series focusing on the people who make UChicago a distinct intellectual community.

In 2006, Satyajeet Salgar, MBA’07, was sitting in an advanced marketing class at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business when he pitched his group on a case study: a new video platform called YouTube.

Smartphones were growing in popularity, and the internet was nearly ubiquitous.

“This platform is going to be big,” Salgar thought. But his group balked.

“The sentiment in the class was, ‘We don’t think this thing will make it to next year,’” Salgar said.

After he graduated, he got a job with Google—working on partnerships at YouTube, one of its newest acquisitions.

“I always found that hilarious,” Salgar said.

Nearly two decades later, Salgar serves as director of product management and user experience (UX) at Google AI. In this role, Salgar leads the company’s efforts to use AI to build the next generation of products for Android, Chrome, Google Cloud, Search and more. It was a path that emerged from his graduate studies at Booth, where he learned to break a problem into its basic principles before looking for a solution.

“I might be a better software engineer for it,” Salgar said. “Even without writing code for two years, I felt like I developed the habit of rethinking everything from the start, then building it back up.”

The path toward innovation

Growing up in Tanzania, Nigeria and India, Salgar saw how innovative technology was changing the way people lived their lives and spent their time.

By high school, he knew computing would be central to his path in life. This led him to pursue a bachelor’s in computer engineering at India’s Pune Institute of Computer Technology, then a master’s in computer science at Stanford University.

As a graduate student, Salgar worked part-time at a medical startup; after graduating, he joined a data storage security startup. These experiences taught him how technology needs to work with sales, marketing and finance to find success.

This understanding deepened when Salgar earned his MBA at Booth, which he calls a truly “transformational experience.” Salgar enjoyed being part of a student body with diverse skillsets and experiences. His classmates all had unique goals, ambitions and talents, and he loved being in their orbit and learning from them.

Salgar worked as editor-in-chief of the Booth student newspaper, Chicago Business, and kept a pulse on what was happening around campus. He was fascinated by classes with professors Austan D. Goolsbee, Sanjay K. Dhar and Raghuram G. Rajan, all world-class experts in their fields.

“I feel very lucky for my time in Chicago because there was this grounding in data and facts,” Salgar said. “The school was also very intentional about helping students be better at both strategy and marketing, so it was a good time for me to be there.”

That groundwork has become essential for Salgar’s career at Google. His broad skillset has allowed him to move from partnerships at YouTube to a wide range of roles across Google. He’s worked on ads, payments, games and Google Search, among other parts of the company.

Search, especially, was important to Salgar.

“It’s an incredible product because of the impact you have on the world,” he said. “You get to deeply understand people, because you can see what they’re looking for and understand their needs.”

New access to intelligence

In his current role at Google AI, Salgar draws on his nearly two decades of experience across the company to guide AI innovation.

AI, he believes, will affect how everyone works and interacts with the world. He said it could extend intelligence much as YouTube lowered hurdles to broadcasting and Search flattened access to information.

Salgar is part of the AI Innovation and Research team, managing designers, researchers and product managers, among other employees. His goal is to improve Google’s core AI models to help make people’s lives better.

He believes there’s still a gap between the potential of AI and how it’s used today. To close it means letting users find new ways to interact with the product, while his team innovates to push technology further.

“Right now, I’m very focused on improving our platforms and ecosystem,” he said. “How will Chrome evolve? How will the Android operating system evolve? We have glasses that we’ve announced—how do those get better with AI? How do people live better lives as a result?”

Marketing plays a role too, Salgar said. To effectively communicate its value, Google must deeply understand its customers and how they use its products. Marketing is an art and a science, he said. His team can be simultaneously creative and data-informed when promoting and improving a product.

Salgar gives back to Booth by engaging with students through the James M. Kilts Center for Marketing, where he sits on the steering committee, and more recently with the Center for Applied AI (CAAI), where he’s on the advisory council.

When he meets with students, he sees that expansions to the school’s programming have helped prepare them well for the intertwined world of business and technology.

This includes events at CAAI and others such as the Kilts Center’s Marketing and Management Forum, which allows students to connect with high-profile alumni in small-group discussions. Salgar has participated in this and other events through both centers.

“The impact of the school, and the Kilts Center in particular, is remarkable,” Salgar said. “I feel very connected to the center and the folks over there and energized by meeting with students.”

One thing that hasn’t changed since Salgar was at Booth is the emphasis on students first understanding themselves and their own interests. Students must not only develop their skills but also learn what makes them feel curious and expand their understanding of how the world works.

Even with all the coming innovation, Salgar said students shouldn’t forget soft skills. There will always be new technology, but learning how to manage and work with people can set a technologically proficient professional apart.

“I often tell students that the class I used the most in my first six months of working at Google was Organizational Behavior,” Salgar said. “What incentives do people have? How do I bring people around to my ideas? Those skills were as important as anything else.”

Austan D. Goolsbee is the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics. Sanjay K. Dhar is the James M. Kilts, Jr. Professor of Marketing. Raghuram G. Rajan is the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance.

—This story was originally published on the Chicago Booth website.

David M. Rubenstein, JD’73, extends support of the Rubenstein Scholars Program with $15 million gift

05/27/2026 - 11:24am

Chair of the Board of Trustees David M. Rubenstein, JD’73, has extended his support of the University of Chicago Law School’s Rubenstein Scholars Program with a new $15 million gift.

The Rubenstein Scholars Program is one of the most distinguished scholarship initiatives in legal education, and Rubenstein’s latest contribution ensures the continued recruitment and support of exceptional students through highly competitive, full-tuition plus stipend scholarships.

Established in 2010 with a $10 million gift, this latest donation brings the cumulative total of Rubenstein’s contributions to the scholarship program to $76 million. The program has benefited more than 220 students to date.

“We are incredibly grateful to David for his ongoing support in creating and sustaining what has become the most prestigious scholarship program in legal education,” said Adam Chilton, dean and Howard G. Krane Professor of Law. “This kind of sustained investment strengthens the Law School in lasting ways. It allows us to bring together exceptional students whose energy and ideas enrich our academic community and contribute meaningfully to the profession, and it’s my hope that David’s gift inspires other donors to support this important mission.”

The scholarships enable recipients to pursue a wide range of career paths. Rubenstein Scholars have gone on to careers in government and public service, clerkships at the highest levels of the federal judiciary, and leading roles in private practice and beyond.

“Being selected as a Rubenstein Scholar was truly life-changing for me,” said Nena Benavides, JD’22, who will clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during the October 2026-27 term. “In addition to providing incredibly generous financial support, the program fosters a community of thoughtful and inspiring people. My career trajectory was deeply influenced by the invaluable guidance and unwavering support of the mentors and friends that I gained through the program.”

Benavides is the 15th Rubenstein Scholar to have been selected to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk. In total, more than 62 percent of all alumni in the program have served in at least one federal judicial clerkship.

Lior Strahilevitz, the Sidley Austin Professor of Law and faculty director of the Rubenstein Scholarship program since its inception, said the program has been “an enormous success” at bringing in some of “the world’s most talented law students.”

Ann K. Perry, associate dean for admissions and financial aid, described the program as “truly transformative” for its recipients while “opening doors of opportunity” that served both them and the Law School as a whole.

In establishing the program, Rubenstein sought to provide future students with the same opportunities that shaped his own path.

“Through full tuition scholarships we can attract exceptional students who are more likely to consider public service because they do not have to worry about loan repayment,” Rubenstein said. “The financial support I received from Chicago Law fostered my ability to later serve in government, and I am humbled by the opportunity to pay that debt of gratitude forward.”

Rubenstein is the co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a global investment firm. He is a major philanthropic leader and partner of the University and has served since 2022 as chair of the UChicago Board of Trustees, working closely with President Paul Alivisatos to help steward the University’s vision and long-term priorities.

His past gifts include funding for the David Rubenstein Forum, which opened in 2021. In March, he committed $50 million to support the modernization of Ida Noyes Hall.

—This article was originally published on the Law School website.

Daniel Kind awarded 2026 Hugo F. Sonnenschein Medal of Excellence

Colin Terrill — 05/27/2026 - 11:00am

Fourth-year Daniel Kind has been awarded the University of Chicago’s Hugo F. Sonnenschein Medal of Excellence for his advocacy to address the homelessness epidemic.

Kind hails from Orlando, Fla. and helped found the Orlando Secure Housing Project (OSHOP) in honor of a childhood friend who died while dealing with housing insecurity. The organization works to offer mutual aid and raise awareness while lobbying for policy changes and funding for homelessness services.

“The public image of homelessness tends to focus on the most visible cases, but the majority of people experiencing it are not chronically or permanently unhoused,” he said. “What OSHOP tries to do is shift that conversation toward understanding what precarious housing actually looks like for our neighbors, and what it takes to address it on both a charitable and policy level.”

The Sonnenschein Medal of Excellence is the highest honor bestowed upon a UChicago undergraduate, in recognition of the same qualities of its namesake: unwavering hope, ambition for others and an abiding courage of conviction.

“Daniel’s ambition for others is clear in his sustained and significant record of elevating the public good,” said Melina Hale, dean of the College. “Through service and leadership, his efforts have been recognized both at the University of Chicago and beyond. We are proud to present him with this well-deserved honor.”

Kind, who also serves as an volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT), becomes the fifth College student to receive the award.

“What makes this award meaningful to me is that it isn’t just about academic achievement,” he said. “It recognizes people who have genuinely invested themselves in the work of helping others, and at a place like UChicago, that combination is definitely something I want to be associated with.”

To Kind, the homelessness problem that OSHOP is trying to address is just the tip of the iceberg, compounded by the many downstream effects of not having a secure place to stay each night.

“Housing insecurity compounds in ways most people don’t see,” said Kind. “Patients without stable housing have measurably worse medical outcomes after the same procedure as someone with secure housing. Even on identical résumés, the applicant with a fixed address is more likely to advance in a hiring process than the one listing a shelter address. The instability becomes self-reinforcing.”

On campus, Kind worked as a research assistant at the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and helped present research centered around climate change’s impact on housing affordability at the Kreisman Symposium for Housing Law and Policy. He was even “elected pope” in the spring of 2025 during Prof. Ada Palmer’s popular reenactment course on the Italian Renaissance. He said the experience changed his perspective on the world.

“One of the things Pope class drove home for me is that, by almost any measurable standard, we are living in the period of human history with the least suffering,” he remarked. “But that’s an argument for doing more, not less. Progress like that isn’t self-sustaining but exists because brave people keep pushing the system to be better and it continues only if we carry on their legacy.”

Kind will be working to solve this problem with his degree in Law, Letters and Society paired with another in the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU). As a founding member of the UChicago speech team, he would love to use his argumentative skills while attending law school after graduation with the goal of focusing on public interest.

“I’m drawn to the kind of work organizations like the ACLU or NAACP do at the appellate level, where the goal is to move policy through carefully constructed cases,” Kind said. “If we’re serious about zoning reform in this country, we need litigation that surfaces the structural causes of the housing crisis. The law seems to me like one of the few tools that can force that conversation.”

One thing that Kind has learned is that there are those just like him trying to make a difference everywhere he looks, including at UChicago.

“Whether I’m raising money for mutual aid in Orlando or watching students donate to a GoFundMe for a local Lyft driver, I keep being reminded how many people are quietly doing this work with little expectation of recognition,” he said. “It’s the Mr. Rogers line I come back to; ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

More information about the Hugo F. Sonnenschein Medal of Excellence and past recipients can be found here. The nomination process for the 2027 honoree will begin in Autumn Quarter of the 2026-27 academic year.

—This article was originally published on the UChicago College website.

UChicago dedicates data science and AI building in honor of alumni supporters

05/26/2026 - 10:48am

The University of Chicago’s first building devoted entirely to data science and artificial intelligence now bears the names of two alumni who met as students, married on campus and went on to support the University for decades.

The Lorraine and Yuji Suzuki Center, home of the UChicago Data Science Institute, was dedicated May 19. It honors the late Lorraine Suzuki, PhD’73, a scholar and educator who helped steer what is now the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, and her husband, Yuji Suzuki, SM’70, who led a global packaging network while serving nearly 20 years on the UChicago Physical Sciences Division Council.

“Through this dedication, we honor Yuji and Lorraine Suzuki, who united statistical thinking with positive community impact,” said President Paul Alivisatos in his remarks at the naming ceremony. “We place their mark indelibly on this campus, and on every scholar who will work within these walls.”

Across borders and boundaries

After marrying at UChicago’s Bond Chapel, the couple’s professional lives crossed continents, with home bases in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Tokyo, Japan.

Yuji, who earned his master’s in statistics, took a position with Tri-Wall, a company that manufactured transport packaging. There, he led the company’s expansion through a partnership with one of the largest paper companies in Japan. The company continued to expand over the next 30 years across China, South Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

Yuji now serves as founder and chairman emeritus of the Tri-Wall Group, a network of companies in over 35 countries that provides innovative and cost-effective packaging solutions.

After completing her Ph.D. at what was then known as the School of Social Service Administration, Lorraine became an associate professor in the University of Michigan School of Social Work. While working there, she earned a master’s degree in management from Stanford University. She later joined Yuji in Tokyo, taking a position with the Asian Division of the University of Maryland University College (now called the University of Maryland Global Campus), where she taught a new graduate program designed to serve U.S. military servicemembers, civilians and their families overseas.

She was later named associate dean of the Asian Division of Programs and, eventually, the vice president and interim director of the Asian Division, where she significantly expanded the institution’s regional research program.

In addition to serving on visiting and steering committees for UChicago, the couple also established the Lorraine R. and Yuji Suzuki endowed Scholarship at Crown and the Yuji and Lorraine Suzuki Postdoctoral Research Fund in the Physical Sciences Division.

“My wife said, ‘once you get to where you want to be, what do you do? You can do something more than retiring,’” said Yuji in his remarks at the dedication ceremony.

How humans and machines think together

Through his service on the Physical Sciences Division Council, Yuji remained connected to and curious about the University’s pioneering research in data science and AI. He supported the development of the Data Science Institute, which was formed to seed research at the interdisciplinary frontiers of the field, develop partnerships with industry, government and social impact organizations, and support data science and AI education.

The new center bearing the couple’s names marks the University’s dedication to pushing the boundaries of these fields and shaping how humans and machines think together.

“When Yuji made the gift, it wasn’t just about the building but about what matters: the foundations of inquiry, the social impacts of knowledge and the preparation of students to enter a complicated and ever-changing world,” said Data Science Institute faculty codirector Dan Nicolae in his remarks.

Formerly the home of the McCormick Theological Seminary, the building was constructed in 2003 and renovated in 2025. The Lorraine and Yuji Suzuki Center now houses two seminar spaces, nine collaborative spaces and huddle rooms, graduate student workspaces, faculty and staff offices, and a wellness room.

“Lorraine and Yuji’s legacy will endure, advancing research and education both within this building and through collaborations across the globe,” said Ka Yee C. Lee, dean of the Physical Sciences Division, in her remarks. “Their support will help drive AI-enabled scientific discovery, foster innovations to strengthen democracy, accelerate and transform climate research, and address other urgent challenges that we face now and in the decades ahead.”

—This article was originally published on the UChicago Physical Sciences Division website.

Stretchable AI patch computes on your body, no server required

Sarah C.P. Williams — 05/26/2026 - 09:50am

A new skin-like computing patch developed at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering can analyze health data using artificial intelligence in an unprecedented way.

Unlike today’s wearable devices, it carries out its AI computations directly on the body, in mere milliseconds, without relying on a wireless connection.

While your current smartwatch may be able to track your heart rate or movements, it doesn’t analyze what it finds. The analysis happens elsewhere, after it shuttles data to an external server. In some situations—detecting ventricular fibrillation in the heart, for instance—that few-seconds lag to communicate with the server is too long.

The new device, designed and tested in collaboration with researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, was made possible by new manufacturing processes that allow organic electrochemical transistors to be printed onto flexible surfaces.

“The future that we’re trying to realize is to make wearable and implantable devices smarter,” said Sihong Wang, an associate professor of molecular engineering at UChicago and co-senior author of the new study, published in Nature Electronics. “It’s helping people have a personal, instantaneous doctor integrated into their devices.”

Manufacturing stretchy transistors

For years, Wang’s lab has been working to create electronic components that can stretch and bend like human skin, with the goal of creating smart devices that adhere to human tissues. The group previously developed methods for fabricating stretchable transistor arrays and a stretchable OLED display.

In the new work, Wang and his colleagues set out to build a stretchable neuromorphic computing circuit—a large array of transistors that can run analyses of health data. Earlier work had demonstrated that the concept was theoretically possible with a small number of transistors but hadn’t scaled it up to a practical size.

The transistors the team wanted to use, called organic electrochemical transistors, work differently from those inside a standard computer chip. They process information using both electrical current and the movement of ions through a gel-like electrolyte layer.

The electrolytes give each transistor a built-in memory, letting them store numerical values stably over time, much the way a synapse in the brain can be strengthened or weakened to encode a learned pattern.

However, these components presented a manufacturing challenge. The flexible surface layer is sensitive to heat and solvents and so can’t be fabricated using standard chip production techniques. At the same time, the gel electrolyte layer tends to move like a liquid, merging with neighboring devices and causing short circuits.

“What we had to ask was whether we could use or change the properties of these polymers to make them compatible with photolithography—the main patterning method used in the microelectronics industry,” Wang said.

The team solved the challenge by engineering a new type of polymer gel that could be hardened into precise patterns through exposure to ultraviolet light. The result is a fabrication method that can produce 10,000 organic electrochemical transistors per square centimeter.

“As computer scientists, we’re used to thinking of a neural network weight as just a number,” said Zixuan Zhao, a graduate student in the UChicago Department of Computer Science and co-first author of the study. “In hardware, it’s a material—with variability, history and physical limits. The challenge was to hold those constraints in mind and still compute with enough precision to matter.”

Saving lives with speedy computing

To test the new devices, Wang’s team used one of their new stretchable arrays to run a pre-trained algorithm designed to help treat ventricular fibrillation.

This dangerous electrical storm in the heart can be fatal and is most often treated with a one-size-fits-all defibrillator shock that delivers a massive jolt of electricity to the entire heart. Researchers have proposed a more precise treatment: mapping abnormal waves of electricity as they move through the heart and delivering small, precise pulses just ahead of them before they can continue.

However, the obstacle has been time. Wavefronts move through the heart so fast that the entire analysis must be completed within milliseconds—far too quickly for data to be transmitted to an external computer and back.

“This is a situation where it’s not feasible to have remote computing. It just takes too long,” said Wang. “But if you have a computing device that can do the analysis within the body, it could be possible.”

Using real cardiac mapping data from a donor human heart, the team showed the stretchable array could locate wavefront positions with 99.6% accuracy, even while the device was stretched to more than one and a half times its normal length.

In a separate demonstration, a neural network encoded in the array analyzed a combination of vital signs and personal health data—including cholesterol levels, blood sugar, maximum heart rate and ECG readings—to assess a patient’s risk of heart attack, achieving 83.5% accuracy.

Wang sees this computing array as one component of a fully integrated, body-compatible health platform. His lab is now working to pair the computing array with stretchable wireless communication components and improved sensors, moving toward a system that can sense, analyze and respond to health data as a fully integrated whole.

“Instead of sending data away to a remote server, we can begin making sense of it right where life is happening,” said Fangfang Xia, a computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and co-senior author of the study.

Citation: “A large-scale stretchable neuromorphic circuit for on-body edge computing,” Li et al, Nature Electronics, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41928-026-01639-8

Funding: U.S. Office of Naval Research, UChicago Joint Task Force Initiative, National Institutes of Health, Argonne National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Leducq Foundation and CZ Biohub.

—This article was originally published on the UChicago Pritzker Molecular Engineering website.

UChicago men’s tennis team wins NCAA title—its third in five years

05/23/2026 - 10:13am

For the third time in five years, the University of Chicago men’s tennis team are NCAA Division III national champions.

The top-ranked Maroons (23-3) defeated No. 2 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) in a thriller on Friday, 4-3, clinching the title in the final and deciding singles matchup.

With the match tied at 3-3, UChicago fourth-year Emil Grantcharov earned the deciding victory, rallying to win the last two sets against CMS’s Warren Pham, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Pham had rallied from down 5-1 in the final set to make it 5-4, but Grantcharov made a huge serve on match point to seal the national championship.

"One of my beliefs is that if you go out, compete as hard as you can and with a good attitude and spirit, good things can happen," said men's head tennis coach Matt Brisotti. "Today was no different than the rest of this season. We played with that determination and confidence."

CMS took an early lead, claiming the point in doubles. In singles play, UChicago third-years Michael Choi, Christian Liew and Ajer Sher all claimed victories, setting up Grantcharov’s deciding win.

The matchup was a rematch of the 2024 national championship, which UChicago won. The Maroons also won the 2022 title.

With the win, UChicago claimed its 11th overall team national championship.

"Winning a national title is the result of hard work, daily consistency and a genuine commitment to one another," said Erienne Roberts, interim director of UChicago Athletics. "This team set a clear goal early and never wavered in its pursuit. I could not be more proud of their discipline and resilience."

University of Chicago launches ambitious campaign, ‘Chicago Minds’

05/22/2026 - 09:30am

The University of Chicago has launched the most ambitious and comprehensive fundraising and global engagement campaign in its history, a multi-year initiative that aims to expand the University’s impact through investments in research and education. A key component of the effort aims to engage with and inspire UChicago’s worldwide community of alumni and friends.

Called “Chicago Minds,” this campaign seeks to leverage UChicago’s uniquely rigorous approach to confront the most pressing challenges of today and the future, from climate to cancer; to explore the potential of emerging technology; and to strengthen economic opportunity and democratic institutions and discourse.

“At the University of Chicago, we are devoted to the cultivation of the human mind that pursues knowledge at the highest level,” said President Paul Alivisatos. “This campaign is designed to honor that enduring commitment and create the conditions in which future generations of Chicago Minds—our faculty, students, staff, researchers, and physicians—can shape the future through discovery, dialogue, and service to society.”

Chicago Minds is inspired by what has distinguished UChicago since its founding in 1890: independent thinkers who are part of a culture that embodies free inquiry and debate, imagination, and persistence. It is an environment where ideas are tested, assumptions are challenged, and discoveries lead to far-reaching impact.

Throughout UChicago’s history, groundbreaking ideas have sprung from myriad fields—as distinct as astronomy, economics, archaeology and genetics—and from across disciplines. Chicago Minds will ensure that in a rapidly changing world, the University empowers the next generation and provides opportunities for them to grow and lead.

"Our common cause is to create the conditions so that Chicago Minds will continue to shape the future,” Alivisatos said in his remarks at the campaign launch event, “and in so doing to fulfill our role in our promise to America that extends across decades and even centuries.”

The campaign reflects years of planning across the University. Organized around broad themes that include advancing world-changing research, fueling faculty excellence, expanding access and opportunity for students, and reimagining the physical campus, Chicago Minds will strengthen the University’s academic enterprise for generations to come. It will support major interdisciplinary initiatives in health and medicine, computing and artificial intelligence, climate and sustainable growth, and thriving cities and institutions. It will also further galvanize UChicago’s global community of alumni and friends to advocate for its mission and values.

Many of these priorities have already inspired significant philanthropic support leading up to the public launch of the campaign:

Faculty excellence — Chicago Minds will promote investment in faculty across disciplines, recognizing that attracting and retaining exceptional scholars is essential to the University’s continued leadership in research and education. A $75 million challenge commitment from Amy Wallman, MBA’75, and UChicago Trustee Richard Wallman, MBA’74, inspired an additional $75 million in philanthropy from alumni and friends to create 30 new endowed professorships across the University.
Student support — The campaign seeks to expand undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, and professional school aid while creating new opportunities for research, experiential learning, and global engagement. It will build on the University’s long-standing commitment to access and affordability, including a new initiative under which, beginning in fall 2027, admitted undergraduate students from families earning less than $250,000 annually, with typical assets, will receive free tuition. Students from families earning less than $125,000 annually, with typical assets, will be able to attend the College free of tuition, housing and meals costs, and other fees.
Mind and machine — The campaign will support faculty, academic programs, and dedicated spaces for research and collaboration on topics related to thinking with machines across all disciplines, as well as foundational work in computing, mathematics, and statistics. UChicago’s distinctive approach to examining the ethical, legal, and societal implications of emerging technologies will feature prominently. A $50 million commitment from Trustee Rika Mansueto, AB’91, and Joe Mansueto, AB’78, MBA’80, will help accelerate the University’s efforts to become a global leader in computing and artificial intelligence by building a cohort of faculty who will pursue AI’s potential.

Health and medicine — Chicago Minds will support ambitious investments in the biological sciences, clinical care, and translational research, as well as the many intersections with the physical sciences, molecular engineering, and data sciences, helping accelerate discovery while expanding access to exceptional care. Philanthropic support for the new AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion is creating one of the most significant health care projects in the University’s history, while a $21 million gift from philanthropist Thea Berggren has established a new center for quantum engineering and human health.
Climate and energy — The campaign will accelerate the University’s efforts to confront climate change while expanding economic opportunity and improving lives around the world. Centered at the new Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, the initiative brings together economics, policy, science, engineering, and business to pursue evidence-based climate solutions, breakthrough energy technologies, and innovative approaches to sustainable growth. A distinctive initiative of the new institute is a commitment to create a new discipline of climate systems engineering. More than $125 million in philanthropic support has already helped launch the effort, which includes a first-of-its-kind curriculum focused on climate and sustainable growth.
Campus renewal — A $50 million gift from Board Chair David M. Rubenstein, JD’73, will revitalize Ida Noyes Hall as a vibrant new hub for student life and a center for welcoming visitors and alumni. The project launches a broader effort to renew the University’s historic campus for the next hundred years while creating dynamic spaces that foster collaboration, connection, and intellectual exchange.
Freedom of expression — Building on the University’s long-standing leadership in free expression and academic freedom, Chicago Minds will support new programs, research, course offerings, fellowships, and public engagement. A $100 million commitment from an anonymous donor to the Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression is helping expand its work on campus and beyond, championing UChicago’s distinctive approach to rigorous debate, open discourse, and the fearless pursuit of truth.

Other generous investments in the lead-up to the campaign are already accelerating work with the potential to expand knowledge, advance scholarship, and drive societal impact across the University.

A $60 million gift from Trustee John M. Liew, AB’89, MBA’94, PhD’95, and Clifford Asness, MBA’91, PhD’94, is helping the University of Chicago Booth School of Business deepen its leadership in finance, economics, and quantitative research.
An $18.4 million gift from the Leinweber Foundation has established a major new institute for theoretical physics at UChicago, strengthening the University’s leadership in fundamental science and expanding opportunities for collaboration across the physical sciences.
Trustee Steven A. Kersten, JD’80, and his wife, Priscilla Kersten, made a $25 million commitment to the Urban Education Institute in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice to advance K–12 education research and improve outcomes for students in urban schools.
A $20 million gift from Trustee Thomas Francis Dunn, AB’81, MBA’86, and Susan Knapp Dunn, AB’82, established the Bike Shop @UChicago at the Harris School of Public Policy, a lab for building algorithms to help design more effective policy.

“This campaign is animated by the extraordinary ambition and momentum of the University of Chicago,” said Rika Mansueto, co-chair of Chicago Minds. “Across disciplines and across the campus, you can see scholars and students pushing boundaries, asking difficult questions, and advancing work that has the potential to shape the future in profound ways.”

Fellow campaign co-chair David M. Rubenstein said Chicago Minds also presents an opportunity to strengthen the University’s global community of alumni and other supporters.

“The University of Chicago has one of the most influential and intellectually engaged alumni communities in the world,” Rubenstein said. “This campaign is about bringing people into that shared sense of purpose and possibility and helping alumni and others see the extraordinary impact this institution can have in the decades ahead.”

Chicago Mindsseeks to increase engagement across UChicago’s global network of more than 200,000 alumni, parents, and other friends in more than 75 countries. By inspiring our community to volunteer, share UChicago research among their networks, and pursue lifelong learning opportunities, the campaign promises to deepen connections across generations of the University community.

“The University of Chicago is worthy of the belief and pride of its global community,” said Armin Afsahi, UChicago’s vice president for advancement. “Chicago Minds is about ensuring that this remarkable institution has the resources to continue generating transformative scholarship, educating extraordinary students, and contributing meaningfully to the world for generations to come. Together, we can build a powerful legacy.”

Learn more at the Chicago Minds website.

UChicago physicists figure out how to reduce formation of ‘viscous fingers’

Maureen Searcy — 05/21/2026 - 11:00am

When they reach the bottom of a soap dispenser, frugal handwashers might try adding water to the bottle to push out the last bit of soap. But usually, the water drills right through the soap and jets out an only slightly sudsy splash.

This happens because when you push a less viscous fluid like water into a more viscous fluid like soap in a confined space, the place where the two fluids meet can be unstable, and the runnier liquid might find a path of least resistance.

If you looked very closely, you might see tiny protuberances form at the place where the fluids touch, in a phenomenon physicists call “viscous fingering.” In certain types of confined spaces, the fingers form a branching pattern.

“The viscous fingering instability is one of the most-studied examples of pattern formation, consistently yielding new insights and variations into the formation of branched structures in the natural world, such as rivers splitting into smaller streams,” said Sidney Nagel, Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Physics.

In a new study published in Science Advances, Nagel’s team discovered that changing the shape of the interface where the fluids touch can delay onset and slow the growth of the branches—promising improved efficiency for industrial and environmental processes.

Shapeshifting

When one fluid meets another in a confined space, the stability of the interface depends on a few factors: how easily the fluids mix, the difference in their viscosity and how fast the fluids are moving. If the interface becomes unstable, it gets wavy and fingers form.

This reduces efficiency in a lot of scenarios. For example, companies use carbon dioxide to push oil out of reservoirs—but if the interface becomes unstable and forms fingers, the gas can shoot straight through the oil to the extraction well. Engineers are then pumping up gas, leaving oil in the ground.

To better understand the problem, Nagel’s team wanted to delve deeper into the fundamental rules that underscore finger formation.

For fluids that don’t readily mix, such as oil and water, surface tension serves as a sort of skin, helping to stabilize the edge between them. On the other hand, for miscible fluids—which can dissolve together into a uniform solution—there is little to no surface tension. This would suggest greater instability, yet sometimes fingers never develop. Why?

For fingers to form, the interface between runny and thick has to be sharp and abrupt; if the fluids are too similar in viscosity, the interface won’t be sharp enough. Fingers can also be avoided if the runnier fluid is injected slowly enough that it has time to seep into the thicker fluid.

But was there a way to affect finger formation without changing those factors?

“We wanted to know if we could physically change the shape of the interface without altering the viscosity ratio, and whether there’s a direct correlation between its shape and the stability,” said Zhaoning Liu, a graduate student in the Nagel lab and first author on the paper.

Smoothing motion

Viscous fingering instability is often studied using an apparatus consisting of two flat, parallel plates separated by an extremely thin gap.

The team filled the gap with a high viscosity solution. Then they injected a low viscosity solution through a small hole in the top plate. As the thinner liquid spread out from the center, pushing the thicker liquid outward, the advancing edge between them formed a blunt curve, with a fairly flat (sharp and abrupt) face. Fingers eventually formed.

Then they repeated the technique, sliding the bottom plate side to side, a process called shearing, varying how fast and how far, to see how the interface changed.

The motion altered the shape where the two liquids met. The interface bulged outward, forming a pointier curve, and the sharp edge smoothed out.

The team found that the farther and the faster they slid the plates, the longer it took for fingers to start forming, and once they did, they grew more slowly—indicating that there is a direct correlation between the interface shape and its stability.

This breakthrough could have ramifications for industrial processes and environmental applications, the scientists said.

“This study demonstrates a new way to control and delay the instability onset,” said Nagel, “which plays a role in so many industrial processes involving fluids, from oil extraction from the earth to carbon sequestration.”

For example, one climate change mitigation effort has been to lock carbon dioxide inside saltwater aquifers, and the ability to control viscous fingering could be the key to trapping more of the greenhouse gas deep underground.

“There is a long road ahead to take this research and apply it to such problems, but this is a start,” Nagel said.

Citation: Zhaoning Liu et al., Effect of translational shear on interfacial structure in the viscous fingering instability. Sci. Adv. 12, eaeb2907 (2026).

Funding: National Science Foundation

—Adapted from an article first published by the Physical Sciences Division.

Medicaid work requirements could cause 1 million missed cancer screenings

Grace Niewijk — 05/20/2026 - 01:30pm

A new study from University of Chicago Medicine projects that upcoming federal Medicaid changes could result in more than 1 million missed cancer screenings within two years of taking effect.

In a research letter published in JAMA Oncology, surgical oncologist Sarah Shubeck and Adrian Diaz, a surgical oncology fellow, used recent data and statistical modeling to project the downstream effects of proposed Medicaid work requirements and more frequent recertification rules outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill from the administration of President Donald Trump.

Starting in January 2027, new federal rules will require many Medicaid recipients to prove they are working and recertify their eligibility more often. In practice, these new hurdles will make it more difficult for people to remain insured.

“These new requirements introduce administrative barriers that often mean paperwork or technical errors determine whether someone gets screened for cancer,” Shubeck said. “A particularly concerning aspect is that people who are disproportionately likely to lose coverage are exactly the people most likely to benefit from early cancer detection: younger adults and people from vulnerable social groups.”

Shubeck and Diaz estimate that within two years of the new rules taking effect, roughly 7.5 million adult Medicaid enrollees eligible for cancer screening would lose coverage, with the number rising above 10 million under the most drastic scenario modeled.

The researchers analyzed real-world data from across the United States, such as the previous work requirements in Arkansas and pandemic-era changes in Medicaid verification. The results showed that more than 1 million mammograms and screenings for colorectal and lung cancers may be missed nationwide within the first two years of the new restrictions. This could result in over 2,300 undetected cases of breast, colorectal and lung cancer—hundreds of which may be at more advanced and difficult-to-treat stages when finally discovered.

Even without accounting for potential treatment interruptions for already-diagnosed cancer patients, the model projects approximately 155 avoidable deaths from only these three types of cancer within two years of policy implementation.

“Early screening saves lives, and lost coverage means lost opportunities for detection,” Diaz said. “The consequences aren’t just numbers—they represent real families affected by avoidable disease and loss.”

The authors emphasized that the impact will vary widely across states, depending on factors like whether states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, populations of screening-eligible adults, and differences in state safety net programs that help support cancer screening and treatment for people without insurance.

“This analysis highlights how policy changes like Medicaid cuts and restrictions can have profound and preventable negative effects on public health,” Diaz said. “The hope is to inform policymakers and the public about the stakes before these changes take effect.”

—This article was originally published on the Biological Sciences Division website.

Is that song AI-generated? UChicago scientists create browser extension to check

Miranda Redenbaugh — 05/20/2026 - 11:25am

In 2024, a remarkable shift hit the music world: AI-generated songs exploded onto streaming platforms, making up nearly half of all newly uploaded tracks. But as the lines blur between human artistry and algorithmic output, listeners face a new question: How much of the music we truly enjoy is made by people, and how much is the work of machines?

A new cutting-edge browser extension from a team of scientists at the University of Chicago, known as Quicksilver, allows listeners to scan songs for traces of AI.

The project is intended to champion transparency, ethical technology, and support from human creativity in a rapidly evolving digital soundscape, its authors said.

Quicksilver was developed by the UChicago SAND Lab alongside the nonprofit Ethical Technology and Computing for Humanity (ETCH), launched this year by UChicago Neubauer Professors of Computer Science Ben Zhao and Heather Zheng with a mission to ensure technology serves the broader interests of society and creative communities.

It follows Glaze and Nightshade, recent work by Zhao and Zheng that disrupt nonconsensual training on artistic work; these two programs have now been downloaded over 13 million times by creatives in more than 160 countries.

“Given that there is so much AI music out there, and that normal users can’t tell the difference, giving users a tool to identify these AI songs was a very natural solution,” said Stanley Wu, lead developer and UChicago graduate student. “At this scale, I think there needs to be more protections in place so that this wave of “spammy” AI music does not negatively impact human artists.”

A tool built for transparency and privacy

As members of the SAND Lab team measured the prevalence of AI music on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, they discovered that most platforms don’t disclose whether tracks are AI-generated or not.

Their research revealed that close to 50% of weekly releases are now AI, most receiving little engagement—a wave of so-called “AI slop.”

Wu and his colleagues, including Zhao, Zheng, and undergraduates Naryna Azizpour and Viresh Mittal, found the problem only deepened the more they investigated: Even professional musicians performed only slightly better than random chance at distinguishing AI music from human compositions.

With AI music so prolific, often created with no human input and little engagement, questions about artist integrity and impact on real musicians have become urgent, Wu said.

Unlike many detection services, Quicksilver operates locally on your device. Users play music from any streaming platform and Quicksilver listens in, analyzing the audio live.

There are subtle “artifacts” in AI-generated audio that ears simply can’t detect, according to the team. With a tap of the “Analyze” button, the extension scans for these artifacts, particularly those produced via Suno and Udio, two widely used AI music platforms.

No audio is uploaded to external servers, and detection is lightweight and fast.

Musicians’ responses to Quicksilver have been overwhelmingly positive, and the team received supportive feedback from the French streaming platform Deezer, whose research also inspired Quicksilver’s detector.

The team is actively working to keep pace with newer music generation models and evolving deepfake technologies. Their ongoing priority is to ensure that Quicksilver remains accurate and responsive, minimizing false positives as it adapts to new challenges.

A nonprofit for ethical development of new technologies

Quicksilver’s roots reach back to ETCH, a nonprofit spun out from years of SAND Lab research. ETCH includes board members and advisors from across UChicago’s Computer Science, Law, Medical, and Booth School of Business, and is dedicated to investigating and guiding the ethical development of new technologies.

The organization’s philosophy is clear: technology must serve humanity. “Human creative work represents the very best of human expression and communication,” ETCH’s website notes. “Creative forms of human expression should be celebrated, preserved, and protected by technology.”

ETCH’s funds and supports ethical research, partners with technologies and creators, translates complex findings into actionable guidance, and builds resources to help creative communities navigate technological change.

“With trillions of dollars committed to developing, deploying, and monetizing AI systems in nearly all aspects of our lives, it is more important than ever to elevate the human voice, to highlight the value of human creativity and ingenuity even as we explore ethical and principled approaches towards AI,” said Zhao. “The goal of ETCH is to ensure that AI efforts are transparent, accountable, and equitable while elevating human creativity and prioritizing social good over profit.”

Looking forward, the researchers are hopeful that industry stakeholders will embrace tools like Quicksilver to promote greater transparency around AI-generated music and streaming content.

“The continued development of AI is poised to change society in ways few of us can predict,” said Zhao. “We believe that technology should always serve humanity, and it is up to all of us to ensure that AI becomes a benefit for the many, not the few. At ETCH, we are working towards this goal in multiple creative domains while engaging with stakeholders across the ecosystem.”

—Adapted from an article first published by the Department of Computer Science.

Please play this syllabus

Tori Lee — 05/20/2026 - 09:56am

Editor’s Note: This is part of a series called UChicago Class Visits, spotlighting transformative classroom experiences and unique learning opportunities offered at UChicago.

Class begins with a final cutscene.

Projected on a large screen, a student guides a cloaked figure toward a beam of light atop a distant mountain. Trudging through blinding snow, the figure falls to its knees, unable to continue.

Then, a dizzying ascent into the sky. A freewheeling flight through red, torii-like gates. And finally, a blinding white light.

“How did this ‘payoff’ make you feel?” prompted instructor Marshall Cunningham.

Relief. Disappointment. Joy. Sorrow. The class is divided.

In the video game Journey (2012), players walk, slide and fly through dunes on a sandy pilgrimage. Without any dialogue other than a musical chirp, the character visits shrines and communes with other players to uncover the history of a fallen civilization.

The game is one of many on the syllabus of “Gaming the Gods: Video Games and Religion,” a new undergraduate course offered by the University of Chicago Divinity School—part of the campus-wide Year of Games. Using video games as primary texts, students analyze the religious themes and imagery used by developers and designers.

“The way this generation of students consumes media is primarily through video games,” said Cunningham, assistant instructional professor of the Bible and the ancient Near East in the Divinity School. “Let's take the medium seriously as a medium of storytelling—of meaning-making—and apply a critical apparatus to it so these students can be better readers.”

Throughout the course, students played Halo, Cult of the Lamb, Indika, I Am Jesus Christ and more, while discussing ritual, belief systems and depictions of religion.

“I feel like I'm really learning how to closely read different works of media. I've never been able to look at video games with such a critical eye before,” said Rafaela Grieco-Freeman, a third-year student in the College. “If you want to expand a different skill, I think this is a really fascinating class to do it.”

How to read a video game

Cunningham hasn’t played a video game in years. However, that didn’t stop him from teaching a new course entirely devoted to the medium.

“I asked students, what do you do when you're not doing school?” he said. “An overwhelming majority said, I play video games.”

When he proposed “Gaming the Gods,” Cunningham wanted to “meet students where they are.” He sees his lack of gaming experience not as a detriment, but an opportunity. Students are the video game experts—Cunningham brings the critical religious studies lens. Together, a foundation of shared authority grounds their class discussions.

Alongside video games, students read secondary texts such as Homo Ludens by Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga and Games as Agency by University of Utah Prof. C. Thi Nguyen. They also studied classical theory on ritual and think pieces on depictions of modern religions and the Gamergate controversy.

“There’s actually a surprisingly long history of people thinking about the overlap between play and ritual,” Cunningham said.

When students play a game in class, Cunningham likens it to critically reading a text aloud.

For example, together the class pieced together Journey’s mysterious past. Buried ruins and gravestones were evidence of a destroyed “before time.” Murals and character visions showed an advanced society undone by its own technology.

Grieco-Freeman, an art history and economics major, grew up playing video games but got deeper into the hobby during the pandemic playing Grand Theft Auto V, Fortnite and the Uncharted franchise with friends. When playing games for class, however, she consciously slowed down her gameplay.

“I looked at a lot of more details than I would've otherwise, even background details that normally somebody would just run past while they're trying to complete the quest,” she said. “I found myself really stopping and thinking.”

The insider/outsider problem

Cunningham also used Journey to illustrate one of the biggest tensions in religious studies: the insider/outsider problem.

Practitioners of a religion, or insiders, believe they do certain rituals because divine commandment prescribes it—eating or fasting at particular times, for example. Non-practitioners, or outsiders, believe rituals reinforce social norms and legitimize power, sometimes called a “functionalist approach” in religious studies.

Students broke into small groups and were tasked with adopting either an insider or outsider perspective to discuss the mysterious belief system.

To insider groups, the main character’s journey implied a belief in reincarnation. The interactions with other players showed the importance of communal experience and taboos around violence.

To the outsider groups, the game’s ending seemed brutal—a main character sacrificing themselves for the good of the world.

At the end of the discussion, Cunningham left the class with a pivotal question: How do our own beliefs color how we understand someone else’s religion?

“Students are thinking about how these games change their dispositions to the outside world, which is what we're trying to do in religious studies,” Cunningham said, “to make people think more deeply about sources of authority and the beliefs that they have.”

Making game jam

As one of their assignments, students partnered with the Media Arts and Design course “Introduction to Game Design” for a week-long Game Jam. In small groups, the classes worked together to design a card- or dice-based game that incorporated religious themes.

Shaw Carlson’s group designed a four-player game where players must put down cards to form a collaborative hand. Depending on an individual’s ritual card, players can win ritual points while blasphemies take points away. The mix of collective play and individual incentive creates a “complicated web” of strategy.

“In one of the texts we discussed, ritual describes the day-to-day, and it also comes from what the collective thinks and wants,” said Carlson, a third-year economics major. “That's one of the ways we wanted to show how a culture determines what becomes okay as a ritual and what's not okay as a blasphemy.”

For their final assignments, students could choose to continue working on their game or write a critical review of a game not covered in class.

Carlson plans to write a final review on his favorite game series, the indie darling Hollow Knight. In the sprawling platformer, an insectoid knight travels through a bug kingdom infected with a plague.

“There are super heavy religious elements. There’s an entire pantheon—the currency in Hollow Knight: Silksong is rosaries,” said Carlson, who has already clocked 100 hours in the sequel. “It’s so cool to analyze some of my favorite things in this way.”

Glyn Dawson, pioneering lipid biochemist, 1943-2026

Matt Wood — 05/19/2026 - 03:50pm

Glyn Dawson, an expert on lipid biochemistry and longtime professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago, died April 14 at the age of 83.

Dawson was known for multiple discoveries about the nervous system and cell membranes, and made contributions to understanding and treating a group of rare inherited neurogenerative disorders found in children.

He pioneered the use of mass spectrometry for analyzing sphingolipids, a type of lipids that provide structure for cell membranes, particularly in the nervous system. His work first identified gangliosides, which regulate cell signaling and adhesion, and he discovered processes involved with lysosomal hydrolase deficient disorders, a group of genetic metabolic disorders caused by deficiencies in enzymes that break down larger molecules.

An avid collaborator and mentor

Born in 1943 in New Mills, England, Dawson was the first in his family to attend university. He received his B.S. degree and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol, in 1964 and 1967 respectively. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh before joining UChicago as assistant professor of pediatrics and biochemistry in 1969.

Dawson studied the role of sphingolipids in cell signaling in the nervous system and advanced our understanding of lipid functions in cell membranes. This led to research on how sphingolipids such as ceramides can enhance cell death programs, how much sphingolipids affect central nervous system-active drugs, and how these pathways are impacted by stress.

Dawson was especially interested in lipid pathology of the Batten disease family, a group of rare, fatal, inherited neurodegenerative disorders that primarily affect children, as well as in the function of enzymes that are mutated in different forms of these disorders. Because of the need to develop enzyme replacement therapies for lysosomal storage diseases, more recently he focused on using quantum dots as agents to deliver proteins to the central nervous system.

Dawson was a noted teacher and mentor who trained 13 Ph.D. students and 17 postdocs, and he was an avid collaborator with many scientific interactions at UChicago and around the world.

A longtime member of the American Society for Neurochemistry, he published over 230 manuscripts and reviews, and his research was continually funded by the National Institutes of Health, Guggenheim Foundation and Burroughs-Wellcome Foundation.

Beyond the laboratory, Dawson was described as a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, and a man of wide-ranging curiosity. A lifelong trainspotter and avid birder who observed over half the world’s species, he traveled the globe with his wife Sylvia, whom he met at a university dance and married in 1966.

He is survived by his wife, Sylvia Dawson (nee Sharland); sons Philip (married to Denise) and Kenneth (married to Veronica); grandchildren Nathan and Eric; and sister Margaret (Joan) Stafford.

The American Society for Neurochemistry is planning a memorial symposium at its next annual meeting.

—Adapted from an article first published by the Biological Sciences Division.

New book traces slavery, family and early capitalism through rural Louisiana

Sarah Steimer — 05/18/2026 - 10:30am

The Felicianas, a rural stretch of Louisiana farmland, sit far from the centers of power that usually anchor United States histories.

In her new book Sweet Home Feliciana: Family, Slavery, and the Hauntings of History, University of Chicago Assoc. Prof. Rashauna Johnson argues that's exactly why the region matters.

“A close look at the Felicianas shows that experiences of time and space are not universal or objective—they are dynamic sites over which a global assemblage contested the meanings of family, race, colonialism, slavery and freedom,” wrote Johnson, a U.S. historian.

This region of the south, Johnson argues, offers a microcosm of social tensions that have persisted from the colonial era to today. The parishes of East and West Feliciana border the eastern banks of the Mississippi River north of Baton Rouge and south of Natchez, Mississippi. This seemingly quiet area historically played an outsized role in the global economy through its intensive cotton industry.

Sweet Home Feliciana tells three stories—of family, region and the world—that highlight histories of contested placemaking. It follows the region’s transitions over time, while also questioning how we define these shifts.

To construct the history, Johnson drew from a range of sources and interpretive techniques. These include official records, personal correspondence and cemeteries as well as oral histories and popular culture references.

Some of these oral histories are from Johnson’s own family. The book presents this compiled narrative in a way that plays with time, allowing for the reader to consider how high-level events and personal stories intermingle.

Sweet Home’s preface is set during Mardi Gras 2016 as a point of entry into thinking about history and family, then moves into the 2020s to explore the current landscape in the region. From there, Johnson’s book shifts to the more distant past—the Seven Years’ War—and continues in a more chronological fashion to about 1900.

“Within each chapter, I'm trying to play with the tensions over whether or not this is a story about progress or development, or a rejection of progress and development as defined by those in power,” she said, explaining that she tries to explore and present each time period “on its own terms.”

“I want to show that doing that still means that we're going to come away with an understanding that each person living in those times had a different experience or relationship to those specific times.”

About 15 years ago, she said, historians of capitalism honed in on the region explored in her book—and others like it—because of its role in the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of capitalism, through its cotton production. Within this framework, Johnson focuses on the actual people whose lands were dispossessed and whose labor fueled this kind of development.

“For them, I don't know that they would use a term like development to explain the emergence of cotton that was going all around them,” Johnson said. “For them, this had to have felt like something very different—perhaps we could use a term like regression.”

In her writing, Johnson uses the perspectives of different actors to consider each period through its own lens, rather than take a presentist view. She points to her ancestor Virgil Harrell, whose history Johnson traced with uncovered documents. This paper trail follows his life of being born into slavery in the high antebellum period and witnessing the Civil War as a young man—living near the Battle of Port Hudson—before getting married.

“Focusing on a person's life in that specific way allows us to think about the ways individuals experienced these massive and world-changing events that are now the key points on a U.S. history timeline in the 19th century,” she said. “But for them, they were real experiences that they had to make sense of and figure out how to move through as real people.”

Sweet Home’s epilogue, Johnson said, returns readers to the present, reflecting on the current stakes of historical work. In some ways, she said, the book closes by meditating on what it means to think about Black history and the history of slavery and emancipation in the present.

“The ability to zoom from the individual level to the more abstracted level is so interesting and so powerful,” Johnson said.

—This article was originally published on the Social Sciences Division website.

Paolo Cherchi, distinguished Romance philologist and devoted teacher, 1937-2026

Rivky Mondal — 05/15/2026 - 02:00pm

Paolo Cherchi, a scholar of Romance philology whose work shaped the study of medieval and early modern literature, died April 4 in Chicago, surrounded by family.

He was a few weeks shy of his 89th birthday. A member of the University of Chicago community for nearly four decades, Cherchi was known for his prodigious scholarship and his expansive intellectual generosity.

Cherchi taught Romance philology as well as Italian and Spanish literature in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures from 1965 until his retirement in 2003. He published more than 600 works on texts ranging from the medieval period to the 18th century, while also engaging modern authors. A true Romanist, his scholarship ranged across Italian, Spanish, Latin, Provençal and Catalan traditions, often tracing how literary motifs traveled across time, language and genre.

Though frequently described as a figure of great erudition, Cherchi himself resisted the label. His colleague Justin Steinberg, William H. Colvin Professor of Italian Literature, recalled that Cherchi saw erudition as a “cold way of looking at what knowledge is.”

Instead, Cherchi believed scholarship began with a problem, something unresolved in a text. His inquiry unfolded from that moment in what Steinberg described as a “golden chain of textual associations” that defined Cherchi’s work.

For Cherchi, the power of the humanities lay in addressing existential questions, rather than using texts to illustrate preexisting ideas. He hoped to instill this same intellectual hunger in others.

“I never left a conversation with him without wanting to read three or four things,” Steinberg recalled.

Cherchi’s learning extended well beyond his own fields.

“He was intellectually extremely strong in his field, but also cultivated a remarkable curiosity for other subjects,” recalled his son, Marcello Cherchi, PhD’97, a neurologist at UChicago Medicine. “He was always interested in what I was doing, no matter how distant it was from his knowledge.”

Marcello also remembered his father’s rigorous work ethic, “which I still try to live up to.”

Cherchi’s books were widely celebrated and reshaped how scholars understand literary borrowing and invention. His studies of courtly love, Renaissance rewriting and onestade, a concept often translated as a form of ethical or social virtue, demonstrated how literary history must engage the complexity of tradition.

As one colleague noted, Cherchi’s work revealed that even canonical masterpieces could only be understood through deep attention to neglected texts, forgotten ideas and the layered evolution of meaning.

“He connected the broken link between modern cultural history and older, enduring forms of knowledge,” said Mauricio Tenorio, Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History. “Incredibly generous with his time and erudition in many languages, Paolo taught me both the evolution of Latin into vernaculars and the politics of philology. I will miss his generous help, his wonderful smile.”

A life in scholarship across languages and worlds

Cherchi was born May 10, 1937, in Oschiri, Sardinia. He received his laurea in lettere from the University of Cagliari in 1962 and his Ph.D. in Romance languages from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966. He began teaching at UChicago in 1965.

Cherchi served on the editorial board of Modern Philology from 1973 to 1988; following his retirement, the journal published a tribute issue in his honor. In his later career, he also taught at the University of Ferrara in Italy, where he joined the faculty per chiara fama, an honor reserved for scholars of exceptional distinction.

A committed institutional thinker, Cherchi built enduring relationships with scholars and institutions in Italy, including exchanges with the University of Rome La Sapienza, that brought students and faculty into sustained intellectual dialogue. These efforts helped position Chicago as a hub for Romance philology and Italian studies.

A teacher, mentor and ‘walking library’

Students and colleagues alike described him as a “biblioteca ambulante”—a walking library—who keenly shared his knowledge with others.

Elusive problems were Cherchi’s calling, according to his colleague Elissa Weaver, professor emerita of Italian literature, who noted that “he showed students not only how to identify them, but how to pursue them in original research and to publish their findings.”

Among fellow Romanists, he was known for his generosity, his delight in repartee and his encouragement of younger scholars, particularly women entering a male-dominated field. In a tribute published in Modern Philology, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor Emerita Rebecca West wrote: “As a very green Italianist, I appreciated his initial belief in me and, as a more mature one, his constant support of my work, and his encouragement to do more.”

For Cherchi, mentorship and teaching were inseparable from scholarship. In his classrooms, especially his renowned Dante seminars, he lectured without notes for hours, drawing connections across Arabic philosophy, medieval science, biblical exegesis and vernacular poetry.

In the Susan and Donald Mazzoni Seminars, which he founded within the Italian doctoral program, Cherchi worked closely with graduate students on original research projects, often helping to transform seminar collaborations into published volumes.

Former student Lynn Westwater, PhD’03, professor of Italian at George Washington University, recalled Saturday mornings with Cherchi in the Regenstein Library rare book room, where he patiently guided students through intricate philological detective work tracing the unattributed reuse and transformation of sources in Renaissance texts. The resulting essays not only helped students secure academic positions but trained them in methods they built on decades later.

“He had more ideas than time,” recalled Meredith K. Ray, PhD’02, who is now Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Italian Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “Instead of keeping them, he gave them to us.”

Outside formal settings, Cherchi cultivated community with equal dedication, whether dropping off students at the Newberry Library, connecting them with scholars in Italy or conducting conversations over meals.

“He had a joke for every situation,” Westwater recalled, remembering a playfulness mixed with profound pride in his students’ accomplishments. In one message to her, Cherchi wrote that it gave him “so much joy” to help students with their research and “so much satisfaction” to see their careers flourish.

Cherchi’s scholarly output remained vibrant through his later years, publishing new work well into his 80s and receiving major honors, including election to the Academy of the Lincei, Italy’s oldest and most prestigious scientific academy in 2016, and an honorary doctorate from the Sapienza University of Rome in 2024.

Cherchi is survived by his wife, Judy Cherchi, his son Marcello and his grandchildren. A memorial service is planned by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures for spring 2027.

—This article was originally published on the Division of the Arts & Humanities website.

UChicago announces 2026 winners of Quantrell and Ph.D. teaching awards

05/14/2026 - 04:00pm

The transformative education offered at the University of Chicago begins in the classroom, with the teachers who inspire, engage and inform their students.

UChicago annually recognizes faculty for their incredible teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students through the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards, believed to be the nation’s oldest prize for undergraduate teaching; and the Faculty Awards for Excellence in Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring, which honor faculty for their work with graduate students.

Learn more about this year’s recipients below:

Quantrell Awards: Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, Ryan Coyne, Nick Feamster and Alexander J. Ruthenburg
Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring Awards: Fernando Alvarez, Pradeep Chintagunta, Jeffrey Stackert and Wei Wei

Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards

Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, Associate Professor in History

It’s important to Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, PhD’05, that students look beyond the here and now.

“One of the things that worries me the most is the dismissal of the past,” said the environmental historian. “If you forget about the past, then it’s easy to be seduced by simplistic accounts of what human nature is.”

In his research, Albritton Jonsson bridges social science and environmental studies, investigating how and why environmental changes have occurred in the past.

At UChicago, he has helped establish the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization as well as the “Energy in World Civilizations” core sequence, with Asst. Prof. Elizabeth Chatterjee, which explores the historical roots of climate change and postulates on futures beyond fossil fuel dependence.

Broadening perspectives also lies at the heart of his pedagogical practice. Albritton Jonsson makes a point of teaching “to the whole room.” For him, a good class means everyone gets to weigh in—undergraduates and graduate students with a multitude “of viewpoints, of experience, of ideology.”

“There's nothing quite like the adrenaline kick of a good class,” he said.

“Professor Albritton Jonsson works incredibly hard and is one of the only teachers, in my opinion, who has a perfect course sequence at UChicago,” said one student. “Hands down the best teacher I have ever witnessed.”

For him, teaching is sharing “the joy of grappling” with rigorous arguments and intelligent thinkers. He even pressure tests his own arguments in the classroom. For years, he has taught iterations of his forthcoming book Pandora’s Box: The First Fossil Fuel Economy, which traces the rise of fossil fuel use in Britain.

“I can honestly say the undergraduates in the classroom have done an incredible favor in helping me hone and make much sharper my arguments in my books,” he said.

Despite the potential doom and gloom of his field, Albritton Jonsson wants his students to walk away from his courses feeling inspired rather than pacified.

“I don’t want them to give up hope,” he said.

After 20 years of teaching undergraduates, he says receiving a Quantrell award means the world to him. “I consider this the greatest honor of my life.”

Ryan Coyne, Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions and Theology and in the College

For Ryan Coyne, teaching begins not with delivering knowledge, but with creating the conditions for discovery.

“Above all, I want the course material to come alive for the students,” he said. “I can only create conditions in which the students do this for themselves.”

Coyne, who studies philosophy of religion and critical theory, approaches the classroom as a space of shared inquiry. Rather than emphasizing the accumulation of information, he encourages what he calls “the power of free inquiry”—a capacity students cultivate by asking and pursuing their own questions.

That approach is especially striking in courses built around demanding texts. In his undergraduate course on Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, students confront one of the most challenging works of 20th-century philosophy. Yet, as one student wrote, Coyne’s lectures were “eloquently put and clearly well prepared,” helping transform the difficulty of parsing the text into “an extremely rewarding process.”

Coyne sees those moments of transformation not as mastery, but as a shift in how students engage one another.

“I find it rewarding when students stop guarding convictions and start asking questions together,” he said. “Seminar discussions flow when students… work hard to see the world from others’ perspectives.”

That work, he notes, requires intellectual flexibility and a willingness to confront one’s own assumptions. It is also what students often remember most, along with Coyne’s engagement beyond the classroom. Coyne is described by students as a professor who takes their ideas seriously, supports their academic ambitions, and connects them with broader intellectual communities.

Coyne’s teaching is closely tied to his research, grounded in careful attention to texts.

“Testing ideas means scrutinizing textual evidence—in teaching, as in research,” he said. “The devil is always in the details.”

For his students, that scrutiny becomes a foundation for creative and independent thought, one that extends well beyond the classroom.

Nick Feamster, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science

Nick Feamster learned a lot of things from his mentors that he took to heart, but one of them was this: to treat his class and classroom as a simulation of the real world.

“I want to try to give you problems to think about, and projects to work on, that are a simulation of what you would see when you leave,” he said. That extends to the way he designs exams, too. “In the real world, when you have a problem to solve, you turn to your friend or colleague and ask for help.”

It also means that when he teaches technical skills in his computer science classes, he considers what students will take away even if they don’t go into the field.

“I put myself into the shoes of someone who won’t be doing this work in a year,” he said. “What do I hope they remember and take with them for the rest of their lives?”

Those things might include: Curiosity about the world. How to solve problems with any resource on hand. And appreciation that there are often no hard and fast answers. He likes to structure his classes around an open-ended question, and to let the students shape the discussion.

His approach has left an enduring impression on those who take his courses.

“Prof. Feamster brings an incredible amount of enthusiasm and care to his teaching, and it shows in the way he actively works with students to shape the course around how we learn best,” wrote a student who nominated him for the award. “His class felt less like a traditional lecture and more like a shared effort.”

Feamster said he was deeply affected by receiving the award.

“This is probably the honor of my life,” he said. “It’s been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career to see the impact I’ve been able to have on students. It gives my job tremendous meaning.”

Alexander J. Ruthenburg, Associate Professor, Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology

Alex Ruthenburg teaches molecular biology in the year-long Advanced Biology Fundamentals Sequence for first-year students in the College. It’s a grueling crash course in science, often a student’s first experience of what academic life is like at UChicago. The courses attract aspiring scientists and doctors who are used to acing their AP biology classes, but during 14 years of teaching in the program, Ruthenburg has seen how it can be a shock to the system.

“There's a culture of students in the program who are really passionate about biology, but they’re also just starting college,” he said. “So, there's a lot of the early challenges like how to study or how to manage their time. I'm the first part of that experience for them.”

The most important element of that transition, Ruthenburg said, is to shift students from the mentality of simply memorizing textbook terms and concepts. “The idea is to have students become practicing biologists by the end of their first year. So, it's like a warp speed, whiplash training montage to learn how to think like a biologist in all the sub-disciplines.”

The Advanced Biology sequence is a combination of interactive lectures, small groups, and labs to immerse students in these fundamentals. Ruthenburg partners with Michael Glotzer, who teaches cell biology, and Navneet Bhasin, who runs the lab sessions, along with teaching assistants who run discussion sections. The goal is to not only shift students’ manner of thinking, but also to give them what Ruthenburg calls “the skills to teach themselves.”

Invariably, the students rise to the challenge. Ruthenburg said his own enthusiasm for teaching is a natural result.

“It is a feed-forward cycle, because my course reviews say things like I'm super passionate and enthusiastic about the subject matter, or ‘how could you not get excited about biology from this?’ But I think it's actually me feeding off their energy to get all of us to that same place.”

Faculty Awards for Excellence in Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring

Fernando Alvarez, the Charles F. Gray Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College

According to Fernando Alvarez, most students enter Ph.D. programs with a common misconception. There is a pervasive myth, he says, that one day the clouds will clear and a shining path up a mountain will appear. At its peak—the perfect research question.

“That's really not at all how research works,” said the macroeconomist. “You're basically in these clouds all the time.”

For the past 30 years, Alvarez has guided UChicago students through the mists, advising them to stay grounded and flexible. He believes that by first reading others’ work deeply, one can then begin the “very incremental, marginal work” of improving upon it.

“Start with something,” he said. “Take it seriously.”

Inspired by his childhood in Argentina—an era of hyperinflation and severe economic downturn—Alvarez made the long journey north to the University of Minnesota to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. While there, his mentor, the equally mysterious and brilliant Nobel laureate Edward Prescott, treated his students more like colleagues.

Though he characterizes his mentorship style as less enigmatic genius and more “detail-oriented and curious,” Alvarez has continued the tradition of developing close relationships with his students.

At UChicago, Alvarez is known for his hyper-clear lectures and walking students carefully through complex problems and ideas.

“He has a rare ability to make difficult material feel natural and intuitive,” said a current student.

“Students leave not only having learned the material, but also having learned how to reason like economists,” said another.

Frequently described as humble and generous, Alvarez keeps his office as well as his home open for students, ready to support them in whatever way they need. Over his career, Alvarez has advised more than 50 doctoral theses; many of his students are now prominent economists in their own right.

This past September, dozens of them returned to campus for a celebratory conference entitled “Fernando Alvarez at 60: Celebrating his Contributions to Economics and his Friendship.” For two days, speakers recognized Alvarez’s brilliance as an economist.

But with the same frequency came stories of supportive mentorship that “demonstrated humility, attention and genuine care,” said one co-organizer, a former student and current assistant professor at Yale University.

“To be Fernando’s student is, quite simply, a privilege of a lifetime.”

Pradeep Chintagunta, the Joseph T. and Bernice S. Lewis Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing at Chicago Booth

Pradeep Chintagunta’s teaching centers on one key goal: helping his graduate students develop their unique talents.

“My role is to recognize the variety of skills of different students and direct them in ways that are tailor-made for them,” he said. “I want to make sure that the student is able to discover themselves in the most effective way.”

For him, this means being available to help his mentees whenever and however they need. Current and former students appreciate his completely “open-door” policy, where students may drop in unannounced.

“What I most appreciate is that [he] will physically step away from his computer, sit at his table, and give us his complete attention, even during these impromptu drop-ins,” one student said.

While Chintagunta knows that these spontaneous conversations are important, he believes conversations between students themselves are often the most impactful part of the learning process.

“Students develop through collaborative conversation, each trying to get the best out of each other,” he said, adding their thoughts and contributions “are not just for themselves but for their peers as well.”

He’s also found these conversations aren’t just productive for students, but for him as well.

“Having great students in the class brings out the best in me as a teacher,” he said.

Chintagunta’s ultimate goal for his students is to help them become “producers” rather than “consumers” of research material. He says the key requirement for this transition is developing a framework for how to analyze a problem for themselves.

Playing a role in this development and seeing former students succeed in their fields has been one of the most meaningful aspects of Chintagunta’s career.

His investment has not gone unnoticed, with former students saying that his mentorship has been “instrumental” in their success. Critically, the mentorship and support he offers extend beyond the classroom, with many highlighting his “unwavering care” for his students’ overall well-being.

“He puts the student first, and does everything in his power, whether it is research help, funding or life advice, to make sure his advisee succeeds,” a former student said.

Jeffrey Stackert, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Divinity School and in the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and in the College

Jeffrey Stackert approaches teaching with a principle that might seem counterintuitive: rigor is a form of care.

“A way of being generous is to be exacting,” he says. “We’re going to push you really, really hard. And we’re going to support you as best we can.”

That philosophy shapes both his classroom and his advising. Stackert works closely with students, often one-on-one, guiding them through the technical demands of philology, argumentation, and interpretation. The result, students say, is a style of mentorship that is as challenging as it is transformative.

As one student shared: “He offered critical yet supportive feedback on [my work]…his guidance and critical questions have shaped me as a scholar.”

Stackert has helped build the Divinity School’s Hebrew Bible program into a leading center for the field, with a distinctive emphasis on languages, method, and early engagement with primary texts. At the core of that approach is a deceptively simple goal: teaching students how to recognize excellence.

“The first thing students need to learn is where to set their expectations,” he explains. “What does it mean to work at a high level?”

That standard is reinforced through detailed, sustained feedback. As one former student recalls, Stackert’s comments do more than evaluate; they teach. He “demonstrates which arguments are successful and which are not,” offering tools to refine ideas and strengthen evidence-based claims.

For Stackert, the work does not end with the dissertation. He views doctoral education as preparation for a career and remains closely involved as students enter the job market and beyond. “We’re training them for a career, not just a dissertation,” he says.

That long-term investment extends well beyond graduation and often evolves into collaboration, as former students become colleagues, an outcome that reflects both his meticulous training style and the durability of his mentorship.

“I feel very responsible to help these students in any way that I can,” Stackert says.

Wei Wei, Professor of Neurobiology

When Wei Wei was training as a neuroscientist, she thought the best part of getting a faculty position would be the long-term freedom to pursue her research interests.

“I was looking forward to starting my lab at UChicago, because I thought the best part of the job is to be in an environment where I can have academic freedom to make discoveries,” she said. “And then I realized that what's even better is not making discoveries alone, but instead, having a team of talented graduate students to work on problems together.”

Wei, whose research focuses on how neural circuits in the retina process visual inputs, tries to cultivate a collaborative and engaging environment in her lab where students brainstorm and troubleshoot projects together. This culture of mutual support in turn builds enthusiasm and makes the science stronger.

“Every student brings new ideas to the lab, and that allows my group's research to take a trajectory that is really shaped by the students,” she said. That active participation and positive feedback loop makes her job as both a scientist and a mentor easier.

“This is really a shared honor. The reason I’m receiving this award is because I’ve had the privilege to get to know such an exceptional group of students. I had so much pleasure working with them. The award is just as much theirs as mine.”

—With contributions by Tori Lee, Louise Lerner, Erin Scott, Julian Veenstra-VanderWeele and Matt Wood.

UChicago will offer free tuition for families with incomes below $250,000, greatly expanding undergraduate aid

05/13/2026 - 01:00pm

Reinforcing the University of Chicago’s commitment to providing an education that is transformative and affordable, UChicago is launching an initiative that will guarantee free tuition starting in Autumn Quarter 2027 for undergraduate students from families that have annual income less than $250,000, with typical assets. The College will also provide free housing and meals and other fees for students from families with income less than $125,000, with typical assets.

The announcement is an affirmation of the University’s core belief that costs should not prevent a student from joining UChicago’s community of extraordinary scholars.

Since its founding in 1890, UChicago has been defined by distinctive principles, including a commitment to free expression and rigorous inquiry, the power of education to improve lives, and the importance of bringing together students with a cross-section of life perspectives. Defined by the influential Core curriculum, a UChicago education teaches students how to think, not what to think. The breadth of the student experience at UChicago includes wide-ranging study abroad programs, hundreds of recognized student organizations, research opportunities with world-class faculty, and a campus culture that fosters fearless questioning and discussion across differences. UChicago is continuing to build on these strengths and expand opportunities and financial support for middle-income families, first-generation students, families in rural communities, and those committed to public service, preparing all students to become leaders, thinkers, and innovators in the fields of their choice.

UChicago is a national leader in preparing College students for success after graduation, showing the deep value of a UChicago education. The College connects undergraduates with more than 5,000 paid internships annually—far more than most peers—and 99% of students complete a substantive internship or research experience during their time in the College. Among Class of 2025 students, 98% received offers for employment, graduate school, and other post-college opportunities.

“The University of Chicago is proud to sponsor a learning environment characterized by intellectual curiosity, ambition, and rigor, to shape the next generation of great thinkers whose ideas will benefit the American people and the broader world,” said President Paul Alivisatos. “By deepening our commitment to affordability, we are helping to ensure that the brightest minds can join us.”

Enhancing predictability, clarity of aid

In addition to expanding the aid available to middle-income families, the new initiative is designed to improve the predictability of financial support and reduce complexity for families navigating their options.

“At a time when many families are uncertain about what the cost of college means for them, we created this initiative to radically expand and simplify our support for students,” said James G. Nondorf, Vice President for Enrollment and Student Advancement and Dean of College Admissions and Financial Aid. “This initiative will increase predictability and allow students and their families to focus on what’s important: their love of learning, and preparation for meaningful and rewarding lives after graduation.”

Providing comprehensive support

The announcement builds on UChicago’s commitment to meet the full financial need of those admitted, with loan-free financial aid. The University provides undergraduate students with more than $225 million in annual financial aid—a figure that has doubled since 2011 and will further increase with this initiative. The average financial aid package for undergraduate students at UChicago is more than $75,000.

Since 2007, a set of initiatives have helped support UChicago students of all socioeconomic backgrounds, including support for a wide range of American families, enabling students to benefit from UChicago’s distinctive educational environment and pursue rewarding careers. In addition, every first-generation student in the College receives a First Phoenix Scholarship, a paid internship, and ongoing mentorship and peer networking.

UChicago has become known for peer-leading outreach to rural students from a wide variety of backgrounds, including serving as headquarters of the national STARS College Network (Small Town and Rural Students). UChicago also has shown national leadership in expanding support for veterans, and is ranked the top college for veterans.

—Learn more about affordability and outcomes at UChicago at this website.

UChicago alumni earn Pulitzer Prizes for international, local and national reporting

Tori Lee — 05/12/2026 - 10:00am

University of Chicago alumni Dake Kang, AB’16, Caroline Kubzansky, AB’21, and Raphael Satter, AB’05, have won 2026 Pulitzer Prizes for international, local and national reporting, respectively. The prizes were announced May 4.

Kang, a journalist with The Associated Press in Beijing, was part of the global team awarded an international reporting prize for their “astonishing global investigation” into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillance—created largely by American companies—used by the Chinese government.

In his reporting, Kang helped uncover that the U.S. government allowed, and even helped, Silicon Valley tech companies sell advanced tech to China, where it has been honed into a vast, powerful surveillance network used to stifle dissent, monitor citizens and target political refugees.

“It’s a real honor, but more importantly, I hope this helps draw more attention to our reporting and the stories of the people we spoke to,” Kang said. “I will never forget what we had witnessed in Xinjiang and elsewhere. In this chaotic age of distraction we are living through, I am grateful that the importance of the issues we documented are being acknowledged.”

A history and math major at UChicago, Kang wrote his award-winning thesis on Beijing’s first subway. He is an Institute of Politics alum and 2023 Pritzker Fellow, where he led seminars on China’s response to COVID-19 (coverage that was named a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting).

“[At UChicago] I met friends and mentors who transformed the way I saw the world and gave me the courage to choose a career that was true to myself,” he said. “For that, I am deeply grateful.”

Kubzansky, as a member of the Chicago Tribune staff, was awarded a Local Reporting Prize for “powerful coverage” of “the Trump administration’s militarized immigration sweep of the city.”

In September 2025, the Department of Homeland Security dispatched Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Chicago in a months-long targeted immigration raid. Dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” federal agents detained over 1,500 people, deported hundreds and fatally shot one man across the Chicagoland area. The presence of federal agents sparked a swell of resistance by Chicagoans in the form of protests and community action.

In the Tribune's months-long coverage, Kubzansky contributed reporting on the ICE shooting of an activist in Brighton Park and a capstone piece documenting the 64-day period of the blitz.

“The Pulitzer announcement brought me back to that period where that daily urgency, and sharing that experience with my colleagues, was the defining feature of my life,” Kubzansky said. “It reminded me of what it felt like to stand on a city street and watch tear gas clouds clear as people up and down the sidewalk washed their eyes out and helped others near them get back on their feet.”

At the Tribune, Kubzansky covers criminal justice with a focus on violence and its root causes. While at UChicago, the philosophy and English major was a student journalist for the Chicago Maroon from her first week on campus until graduation, serving as the managing editor from 2020-21.

Kubzansky says her time at UChicago gave her “ideas about power, state authority, the meaning of politics and love,” that she thought about during the blitz, but also foundational tenets she uses every day as a reporter.

“Ask for help if you need it—most problems are less intimidating when discussed with someone you trust. Be rigorous in your examination. Ask the intimidating questions,” she said. “Consider the history of the thing before you and ask: How does this fit into what came before it, or stand it on its head?”

Satter, an investigative reporter at Reuters, was part of the winning team that received the National Reporting Prize for “documenting how the president used the U.S. government and the influence of his supporters to expand executive power and exact vengeance on his foes.”

As part of the winning series, Satter contributed reporting on the “purge” after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The story outlined the government-backed retaliatory campaign that led to the firings, suspensions and investigations of more than 600 people across the U.S. who made comments on the right-wing influencer’s death.

At Reuters, Satter covers cybersecurity, surveillance and disinformation. He has written extensively on state-sponsored espionage and Russian hacking operations. While at UChicago, Satter also wrote for the Maroon and graduated with a degree in political science.

Kang, Kubzansky and Satter join a distinguished list of UChicago scholars and alumni who have won Pulitzer Prizes. Recent honorees include investigative journalist Trina Reynolds-Tyler, MPP’20; author Brent Staples, AM’76, PhD’82; playwright Martyna Majok, AB’07; and poet Tyehimba Jess, AB’91.