News

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 and local reporting

Tori Lee — 05/12/2026 - 10:00am

University of Chicago alumni Dake Kang, AB’16, and Caroline Kubzansky, AB’21, have won 2026 Pulitzer Prizes for international and local 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?”

Kang and Kubzansky 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.

New UChicago digital research tool opens paths connecting cultures and continents

05/11/2026 - 05:13pm

A new website beta launching today is transforming creation, stewardship and delivery of digital collections and data at the University of Chicago.

Built by the UChicago Library and the Division of the Arts and Humanities, UChicagoNode is designed to give researchers and the public a single hub to discover a wide range of digital collections through a unified, open-access platform.

At launch, UChicagoNode offers more than 4,000 digital files from five collections: the Mapping Chicagoland Collection; the Guerrilla Television Network; the Modern Bengali Song Collection; the Middle East Photograph Archive; and the Social Scientists Map Chicago Collection.

Over the next several years, UChicagoNode is expected to grow to support petabyte-scale data, including hundreds of thousands of files from more than 200 collections. It now features digitized photos, maps, videos and sheet music, and will soon add manuscripts, lithographs and audio recordings. UChicagoNode will continue to grow as researchers contribute new collections and will provide a long-term home for content created by UChicago faculty for research and teaching.

It will also offer records of collections from across campus, including those from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, and content contributed by UChicago’s project partners.

"What makes UChicagoNode so powerful is how it facilitates exploration across multi-media content in ways that reward both the expert and the newcomer,” said Hoyt Long, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations.

“Every object is encoded with rich metadata that allows users to quickly navigate their way to specific items in a collection while also seeing how each item is related to the collection as a whole. UChicagoNode brings our digital collections to life in ways that will make it an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike, opening up new paths into the archive."

Providing access to information about collections at scale also opens collections as data, making them newly available to quantitative methods of study.

To enable such research, the UChicago team has enriched maps in UChicagoNode with georeferencing data, so that researchers can overlay the historic maps they find in UChicagoNode on OpenStreetMap, a contemporary map of the same location. For example, students and scholars interested in the Great Chicago Fire can type “fire” into UChicagoNode’s single search box and discover maps of the area that was burned during this landmark historic event. They can then view the overlap of that map with a current map of Chicago using the Allmaps viewer embedded within UChicagoNode to see how the burned areas have developed.

Members of the public as well as scholars can make other fascinating discoveries about arts, culture and history using UChicagoNode. A single search for “Chicago politics” points visitors to 55 videos from the Guerrilla TV collection on topics such as activists’ efforts to keep Cook County Hospital open or life in the Cabrini Green housing project.

Schoolteachers and students can also browse 19th-century photos of the Middle East, discovering the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem; the Hagia Sophia; the Pyramids, Sphinx and Temple at Giza; and the White Mosque in Ramla.

“The University of Chicago Library is committed to opening its collections, to ensure persistent access to scholarship and to contribute to a global knowledge environment that is open, accessible and equitable,” said Torsten Reimer, University librarian and dean of the Library. “UChicagoNode now provides a robust and accessible infrastructure for Library collections and Arts and Humanities research outputs at UChicago, ensuring continuous access to a wealth of information.”

Library leaders chose to collaborate with the Forum for Digital Culture to create UChicagoNode by expanding on their successful OCHRE Data Service.

UChicagoNode gives future collection-builders extraordinary flexibility to add and update collections with relevant descriptions and will provide coherent data services for scholars alongside the OCHRE data service, and the online publication service, CORPUS.

“We expect UChicagoNode to be a powerful tool for current and future faculty,” said Rachael Kotarski, associate University librarian for digital strategy and services.

Launch collections in UChicagoNode

The Mapping Chicagoland Collection brings together cartographic works of Chicago from 1812-1940 on topics such as land use, urban planning, transportation, utilities, annexations, wards, industries, topography, cemeteries, world’s fairs and population.

While the print maps are held separately by three cultural institutions—the Newberry Library, the Chicago History Museum and the UChicago Library—thanks to their collaboration, nearly 2,000 Chicago maps are now united digitally in UChicagoNode for the first time, with more to come. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for the Mapping Chicagoland project.

Also newly available to the public online is the Guerrilla Television Network. This collection includes videos made by diverse artists, activists and journalists from roughly 1968-1980 as part of a movement that amplified the voices of women, Black, Indigenous and people of color, immigrants and Appalachian miners. Activist documentaries, portraits of community members, abstract animations, poetic experiments, goofy skits, insightful journalism and observational footage are all featured in these independently produced videos.

Originally, videotapes in this collection were screened in galleries, lofts and at festivals, traded between collectives and media arts organizations, and occasionally broadcast on nascent cable television, local public television stations or pirate TV signals. To make them available today, the tapes were digitized through a project that began in 2021.

“These tapes are all crucial parts of our cultural heritage, stories told by people who never saw their voices reflected in mainstream corporate media,” said Cecilia Smith, the Library’s director of digital scholarship. “This is ‘the people’s television,’ a version of the media that encouraged active participation and that gave voice to the concerns and interests of ordinary citizens.”

Now available to all through UChicagoNode, many of these videos have not been seen in 50 years.

The Modern Bengali Song Collection includes scores, lyrics, letters, periodical articles, recordings and personal papers documenting the history of modern Bengali song. This newly available collection was created through a partnership between the Library and the Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, supported by the UChicago Center in Delhi. Nearly 2,000 images and documents from the Manna Dey and Sudhin Dasgupta collections are available to the public.

Joining the century-old maps on UChicagoNode are more than 400 photographic prints in the Middle East Photograph Archive taken primarily in the 19th century. Islamic monuments built between the 9th and 15th centuries in and around Cairo feature prominently in these photographs.

Finally, 45 maps from the Social Scientists Map Chicago Collection have been added to UChicagoNode with new georeferencing data. Chicago School of Sociology researchers created maps in the 1920s-1930s that were considered the most wide-ranging cartographic portraits of an urban area ever compiled. A Social Base Map of Chicago, neighborhood maps, land use and land value maps connected with Homer Hoyt, maps from books by Frederic Thrasher on gangs, Walter Reckless on “vice” and Clifford Shaw on crime are included, along with geographer Harold Mayer’s railroad maps and anthropologist Sol Tax’s manuscript cartographic representation of blockbusting in the Hyde Park area.

An expanding future

“We are working on adding more nodes across different disciplines and academic fields, including records from the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures,” Reimer said of the hub’s future. “The ambition for UChicagoNode is to create a linked network that preserves and opens the field-defining research of UChicago scholars to the world.”

The National Endowment for the Humanities and individual benefactors provided generous support for UChicagoNode.

—A version of this story was originally published by the UChicago Library.

Are randomized controlled trials harming nonprofits?

Susie Allen — 05/11/2026 - 12:01pm

In the 1940s, medical researchers began using randomized controlled trials to assess the efficacy of health interventions. In RCTs, researchers create randomly assigned treatment and control groups, administering the potential remedy to only the first group, and comparing how the participants fared.

This method, with its promise to tease apart cause and effect, had such seductive explanatory power that other fields began to take notice.

One of these was the social policy sector, Profs. Nicole P. Marwell and Jennifer E. Mosley write in their new book, Mismeasuring Impact: How Randomized Controlled Trials Threaten the Nonprofit Sector (2025). Advocates of conducting RCTs believed the trials could bring clarity to the messy work of helping people. Does a job training program really result in more participants getting jobs? Identify a control group and a treatment group and find out.

But as Marwell and Mosley, both professors at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, write, this well-intentioned notion has grown so powerful that the RCT came to be seen not as one method of assessment among many but as “the only method that tells you whether or not the program works,” Marwell said —and an important way for organizations to attract funding.

Mismeasuring Impact challenges this status quo, arguing that RCTs aren’t always the best tool for the job and calling for a more expansive approach to the evaluation of nonprofit social programs.

Questioning the role of RCTs in social policy took some courage. “There’s a lot of support for this methodology on this campus and in this city,” Mosley said. “But in the Chicago way, they are supportive of having lively debate on the topic.”

The problems with implementation

When Marwell and Mosley began speaking to nonprofit employees, funders, and even the evaluators who help organizations plan and administer RCTs, they were surprised to discover how many people had developed misgivings about how the procedure was being implemented in practice.

Many of the concerns were methodological.

Evaluators were especially troubled by insufficient sample sizes: Social programs are often expected to have small-scale effects or to address rare issues, such as youth involvement in gun violence. To statistically detect whether these kinds of programs are working, the organizations running them might need to enroll many hundreds of participants in an RCT.

“But most youth programs don’t serve that many youths at one time,” Marwell and Mosley write in Mismeasuring Impact. “There may not even be that many youths in the neighborhood.”

RCTs are also plagued by problems with so-called control group contamination: People assigned to a control group who didn’t get access to an organization’s program may seek help elsewhere. This means the trial isn’t comparing the treatment to nothing; it’s comparing the treatment to a similar program delivered elsewhere.

Costly and time-consuming, RCTs are also placing a significant burden on the nonprofits conducting them. Under normal circumstances, an organization that sees an emerging need or a gap in its current offerings can quickly adjust; nimbleness is a historic strength of the nonprofit sector. But, Marwell and Mosley explain, organizations conducting expensive multiyear RCTs are essentially frozen in amber—they can’t change their programs once the trial is underway.

These implementation problems undercut a core claim made by RCT proponents: that RCTs provide the best evidence that a program either works or doesn’t. If an RCT finds that a program has no effect on outcomes, it could signal that the program is ineffective—but, Marwell says, it could also indicate that “you didn’t implement the RCT according to the very rigorous methodological standards that it requires.”

Beyond the RTC

Marwell and Mosley talked to many in the nonprofit sector who worried that the dominance of RCTs was pushing organizations to offer programs with easily measured outcomes. Yet many social needs don’t fit into the tidy cause-and-effect framework of the RCT. A homeless shelter, for example, provides vital services but may not on its own reduce homelessness.

“If we continue down this road [where] RCTs are the only way to prove your legitimacy as a program,” Mosley said, “it does devalue those programs that are never going to be able to be part of an RCT. Is that really a world we want to live in?”

Of course “we do need to make sure our programs are effective,” Mosley says. Fortunately, she and Marwell point out in Mismeasuring Impact, there are many tools beyond RCTs to measure efficacy.

Surveying program participants more regularly can yield essential information about what helps and what doesn’t. “Plan-do-study-act” cycles—quick, small-scale experiments—can also help organizations “iterate and improve on a continuous basis,” Marwell adds.

That’s good for all nonprofits, including ones that will never be able to run RCTs. And what’s good for nonprofits is good for the rest of society, she says: These organizations are “such a critical part of our social safety net and a critical part of the services that help people grow and thrive.”

—A version of this story was originally published by the UChicago Magazine.

UChicago chemists invent new way to swap nitrogen into molecules

Louise Lerner — 05/08/2026 - 09:45am

One of the most common types of medicine is a category called small-molecule drugs. This includes the pills you’re used to taking, such as ibuprofen, but the category covers drugs for everything from eczema to cancer.

However, when researchers want to create a new small-molecule drug to treat disease, the process is long and complex—and it starts with making the compound itself to test it.

A new breakthrough by University of Chicago chemists shows how to easily customize molecules by swapping carbon-oxygen pairs for nitrogen atoms. In some cases, the process can be reduced from 10 steps down to just one or two.

The team hopes the finding, published April 30 in Science, could accelerate drug discovery.

“This is another strong tool in the box for the goal of being able to imagine a molecule and then make it—to assemble a molecule as a wish,” said chemist Zining Zhang, a graduate student at UChicago and first author on the paper.

Structure matters

Creating molecules from scratch is hard. It’s not like reaching into a box of loose Lego bricks. It’s more like starting from a box of already partly assembled Lego builds and cobbling those together into the structure you want—with very strict rules about how and when you can take pieces apart.

The structure you’re making matters a lot. When you’re making a drug, tiny changes—like moving a single nitrogen atom—can have huge implications in the final product. That single atom could make the difference between a drug that latches onto the right proteins in the body and one that fails.

But when researchers want to test out different versions of a molecule, to see which one works best, they have to laboriously figure out how to build each new iteration.

“So the question we try to address is, can we find a quicker way to introduce many different structural variations that contain nitrogen atoms?” said Guangbin Dong, the Weldon G. Brown Professor of Chemistry at UChicago and senior author on the paper.

In this case, the scientists wanted to see whether they could figure out a way to easily swap in nitrogen atoms in place of carbonyl groups, a common feature of small molecules that consists of paired carbon and oxygen atoms.

Previously, the Dong lab found a way to more easily move these carbonyl groups around when making a new drug. But they also wanted to give researchers the ability to move nitrogen where needed.

“The location of the nitrogen is important because it is often the piece that interacts with the active site in your body, so we want to be able to move it easily,” explained Zhang.

The group was able to find a simpler method using an ingredient called NAHA, which grabs the carbonyl and cleaves its bond. Then, through a series of moves like choreographed dancers switching partners, the empty space gets filled with nitrogen.

The process is simple, effective and inexpensive, the scientists said. They also noted the design of the technique allows many different types of attachments, known as functional groups, to be compatible, even those that are normally tricky to successfully integrate.

“This was kind of a dream reaction,” said Zhang, “so it was really gratifying to see it work.”

Dong added the group plans to continue pursuing the direction.

“We’d like to be able to swap carbonyl to all of the possible important atoms,” he said.

The other authors on the paper were visiting undergraduate student Zhehan Liang and graduate student Rong Ye.

Citation: “Scanning nitrogen in sp3-rich scaffolds enabled by carbonyl-to-nitrogen atom swap.” Zhang et al,

Funding: National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb fellowship.

Four UChicago undergraduates awarded 2026 Goldwater Scholarship

Colin Terrill — 05/07/2026 - 11:48am

University of Chicago third-year students Arthur Costa, Shelley Fernando, Mason McCormack and Vincent Wang have been selected as winners of the 2026 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. The four undergraduates are among more than 450 winners selected this year for the award, which aims to help STEM students further their research during the last years of their bachelor’s studies.

The Goldwater Scholarship was created by Congress in 1986 and recognizes undergraduates who intend to pursue research careers in natural science, mathematics and engineering. The prestigious award helps winners cover the cost of tuition, room and board, fees and books up to $7,500.

We spoke with each of the winners about their research and what receiving the honor means to them:

Arthur Costa

Arthur Costa is a chemistry major who wants to know how different scientific disciplines can be combined to solve real-world problems.

“I’ve always been interested in the interface between chemistry and biology,” he said. “Specifically, I’ve been trying to see how we can use chemistry to understand and manipulate biological systems.”

This idea has led him to focus on how we can use this way of thinking to solve problems in the medical field. At UChicago, Costa has worked with doctors, epidemiologists and biologists, and as part of a team in the Genehackers organization to create tools that can be used towards improving global disease detection and treatment.

Tell us about your research.

Most of my work has been in Nobel laureate Prof. Jack Szostak’s lab, which aims to understand how life may have started on Earth in the early days by creating model protocells with materials that could plausibly have been present. The opportunity to work with him has been a tremendous learning experience that has taught me how to think as a scientist.

My research uses small molecules to increase membrane permeability to load nucleotides into protocells and trap them inside. Using this system to load nucleotides increases internal RNA copying yields nearly 10-fold and solves a major problem in origins-of-life research by showing how nucleotides could have entered and accumulated inside those early protocells.

Shelley Fernando

For Shelley Fernando, it all started in the Advanced Biology sequence as a first-year student.

For a final assignment, each student was tasked with choosing a scientific paper and writing a review about it. She decided to write hers on an unpublished preprint covering the mechanisms of DNA-loop extruding proteins and the rest was history.

“I got super excited about these loop extruders and did a deep dive on the subject.”

That curiosity eventually led her to declare a major in biological chemistry and research assistant roles in three different laboratories, all of which study genome architecture and loop extrusion at different levels of abstraction. As she works toward a long-term goal of earning a Ph.D. in molecular biology or biochemistry, Fernando said she hopes for more opportunities to meet scientists and talk about exciting science.

Tell us about your research.

I’m interested in the spatial organization of the genome of the nucleus and the dynamic regulation of the 3D genome architecture. Nearly all the cells in our body have the same genome—genetic information in the cell that is packed in the form of chromatin that can be marked and organized in ways that control which genes are expressed in which cells.

My work at UChicago focuses on the changes in chromatin organization that drive the development of B cells. I hope to use the skills that I am learning here to pursue a PhD project that uses ex vivo microscopy and computational modelling to understand the interplay between loop extrusion and epigenetic state.

Mason McCormack

Space has always pushed the boundaries of human knowledge. The drive to answer these seemingly impossible questions fostered Mason McCormack’s interest in studying distant alien worlds.

“Using cutting-edge technology and pushing the boundaries of what we think we can measure really drew me towards this field,” McCormack, an astrophysics major, said. “The study of space is really a testament to human ingenuity in how much data you can get out of shockingly little information.”

McCormack, the president of the UChicago Space Program, has been an engineering lead of the Polarization modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment (PULSE-A) for the last two years. He also conceived of and secured funding and a NASA grant for the Particle Acquisition from Stratospheric Conditions for Analysis in Laboratory (PASCAL) science balloon experiment and attended international conferences.

McCormack said doing all this at a school without an engineering program was made possible by “the drive and support of my fellow classmates and every professor that has generously given us their time and wisdom.”

Tell us about your research.

My primary research is on exoplanets. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, we are trying to understand what the atmospheres are like on some of the biggest planets we’ve discovered. I run hundreds of atmospheric models based on some planetary and stellar parameters we can observe and a couple of molecules to see if we can deduce the composition of these “hot Jupiters.”

The goal of this research is to find a link between how these planets are formed and their compositions. We know that they couldn’t have been born where they are because they are too close to their stars. The fact that they couldn’t be born where they are currently located opens up the question of how they migrated there from their point of origin. Trying to figure out billions of years of history from a few data points is such a uniquely fascinating problem to be working on.

Vincent Wang

Machine learning is still in its infancy, which is what Vincent Wang finds so fascinating about it. For a technology that has become a household name seemingly overnight, there is much that we still don’t know about it.

“I think a very compelling part of machine learning is that it is a field that has many interesting empirical phenomena that we don’t quite understand,” Wang said.

As a double major in mathematics and computer science, he hopes to use mathematics to better understand why machine learning has improved so much over the past decade in order to make it safer and more rigorous.

Tell us about your research.

I’m broadly interested in finding new ways to understand machine learning theory through mathematics. I’m currently working with Research Asst. Prof. Mahdi Haghifam at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC) on understanding the optimization of algorithms that satisfy differential privacy, which is a mathematically rigorous guarantee that an algorithm does not leak the data it trains over. In the past, I’ve worked on other projects in combinatorics, tropical geometry and numerical methods for solving partial differential equations.

UChicago and TTIC really shaped how I think about machine learning by describing the field through a consistent theory. It gave me an appreciation of how deep the field runs today.

Each of this year’s Goldwater Scholars was supported by the Office of National Fellowships in the College Center for Research and Fellowships, which guides candidates through rigorous application processes and interview preparation for nationally competitive awards like Goldwater. The Center’s team helps students identify and articulate how their unique talents and distinctive paths prepare them to realize a better world.

—A version of this story was originally posted by The College.

Edith Rickert: Novelist, Chaucer scholar and WWI code breaker

Shiloh Miller — 05/07/2026 - 10:08am

Assoc. Prof. Emerita Christina von Nolcken liked taking students on “little jaunts,” trips to the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.

There she would show them the famous eight-volume work The Text of the Canterbury Tales, Studied on the Basis of All Known Manuscripts, by scholars and University of Chicago professors John Manly and Edith Rickert, PhD'1899.

In all her years teaching a course on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, von Nolcken began to realize she knew more about Manly—whose portrait hangs in the English department in Walker Hall—than Rickert, whose face she had never seen.

Von Nolcken went searching in Special Collections for photos but found far more. Rickert, she discovered, was beautiful, well traveled, and well liked, and her writings conveyed a kind of crackling intensity and thoughtfulness.

“This is a really interesting woman,” said von Nolcken, a scholar of Old and Middle English literature.

Her initial curiosity moved her to become Rickert’s biographer, and in 2024 she published The “Lives” and Writings of Edith Rickert (1871–1938): Novelist, Cryptologist, and World-Class Chaucerian.

The book reveals an accomplished scholar and writer who was also partly responsible for one of the most important acts of American code breaking in World War I. Rickert’s scholarly and cryptographic achievements are sometimes not given the same credit as those of her male collaborators, an oversight von Nolcken’s biography seeks to rectify.

Cracking the code

Rickert was born in 1871 and grew up first in the small Ohio town of Canal Dover and later in Chicago.

The first in her family to go to college, Rickert graduated from Vassar in 1891 as valedictorian. She then returned to Chicago to teach high school and pursue a Ph.D. in Middle English at UChicago. Dissertation research called her abroad, and on her 25th birthday she set sail for Europe to explore the British Museum’s collection of medieval romances.

The summer of 1899 took her to Chicago to defend her Ph.D. Among her examiners was John Manly, the “brand-new whiz kid at the University,” as von Nolcken describes him, and the first head of the English department. Right away Rickert “fell desperately in love.” But she nevertheless decided to return to England and establish herself as a writer—publishing five well-received novels, several works of scholarship and many short stories.

In 1909 Rickert returned to America to finance the educations of her three younger sisters. Then, when the United States joined World War I in 1917, she followed Manly to Washington, D.C. to become a code breaker.

Rickert had gained some code breaking experience that same year from her work on the Voynich manuscript, a 15th-century document written in a (still uncracked) cipher, and she had picked up German at Vassar.

Information about Rickert’s code breaking is hard to come by because the 1917 Espionage Act put limits on most outside communication. But it’s clear that she took to the work with diligence and zeal.

After three days of nonstop effort, she and Manly broke the Waberski cipher, found on a paper sewn into the clothes of a German spy intercepted in February 1918 at the U.S.–Mexico border. Known patterns in German spelling, like the fact that the letter c is always followed by h or k, helped them identify patterns. The decrypted message concerned Germany’s attempt to ally with Mexico, reinforcing information in the Zimmermann telegram cracked by the British the year before.

Rickert’s role in breaking the Waberski cipher has been largely overlooked by historians. She is also not widely recognized for her work in the pre-war years revising—and helping write—a series of English grammar and composition textbooks that bear Manly’s name. In fact, after publishing the biography, von Nolcken found a letter in which Rickert says she did all the work on the cipher.

“I can believe her,” said von Nolcken.

Tellers of Tales

After the war, Rickert and Manly embarked on what von Nolcken considers “the most ambitious humanistic project of the early 20th century,” their critical edition of The Canterbury Tales. For this they had to locate and examine every one of the more than 80 extant manuscripts of the tales, in order to reconstruct the version left by Chaucer’s very first scribe.

After purchasing photostats of all the manuscripts, they and their assistants collated them in what became known as the “Chaucer Laboratory” at UChicago. Both Rickert and Manly now taught at the University, where Rickert—like von Nolcken—became a full professor focusing on medieval English literature.

“I had her job, in a sense,” von Nolcken said.

After years of worsening health, Rickert died in 1938, two years before the eight-volume Canterbury Tales was published. While the edition is not used widely today, von Nolcken believes that “no one has edited The Canterbury Tales with more care.”

Von Nolcken’s biography is bookended by excerpts from Rickert’s notes towards an unfinished autobiography, My Book, penciled at the very end of her life.

In her own words: “In this life, just as I am, physically & mentally, I have certain powers & certain opportunities not quite like those of anyone else. So with each of us. It is our business to be used to the utmost. And why, I wonder? Because stagnation means atrophy—going backward—& that is the one crime. The perpetual urge in us toward growth & grasp & power & understanding—that is God.”

—This article was originally published in the University of Chicago Magazine.

What a thousand years of economic history reveals about modern growth

Cristi Kempf — 05/06/2026 - 02:16pm

Scholars have long debated what sparked Europe’s economic surge in the mid-18th century.

That debate took center stage recently at the University of Chicago, where an expert panel from the Harris School of Public Policy and Northwestern University—a group including two Nobel laureates—held a wide-ranging and pointed discussion on history’s lessons for growth.

Hosted by Harris’ Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility, the April 14 event featured Steven Durlauf, the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor at Harris and the Stone Center’s director; University Professor James Robinson; and Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University’s Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences.

Mokyr won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on the historical origins of sustained economic growth; Robinson won in 2024 for his work linking political and economic institutions with prosperity.

The event offered a rare opportunity to hear three leading academic voices examine the origins of the modern economy and forces shaping its future. The Keller Center's Forum filled quickly, leaving standing room only for the panel moderated by Veronica Guerrieri, the Ronald E. Tarrson Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the UChicago Booth School of Business.

Mokyr described the recent book he co-authored, Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000. Stretching over the millennium, the book argues the two arcs diverged near the halfway mark due largely to differences in culture and social structure. These led China to turn inward as Europe became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

As China emerged from the Middle Ages, Mokyr explained, extended families, or clans, grew stronger, binding people through kinship. In Europe, the opposite happened. Family ties loosened, replaced by what he called “alternative institutions” of guilds, monasteries, universities and autonomous cities.

This focus on shared purpose over common ancestry created space for strangers to collaborate, for ideas to circulate, for institutions to evolve, Mokyr argued.

Europe became an innovative place where people could challenge authority, question tradition and imagine something entirely new. China remained intellectually vibrant as well, but was less inclined toward radical change.

“You see a very active intellectual community in China, but you don’t see radical ideas or people saying, ‘Let’s overthrow everything and start anew,’” said Mokyr.

Durlauf and Robinson followed him to the podium with critiques that sharpened the debate over how lessons from history connect to economic growth. Both discussed the difficulty of drawing clear conclusions across so many years.

“It’s extremely difficult to disentangle a kind of causal relationship over such a long period of time when so many other things are going on,” said Robinson.

He pointed to “other things” not central to Mokyr’s thesis, such as the voyages of European explorers and the 17th century English Civil Wars, during which King Charles I was beheaded, as critical turning points.

The mid-1600s were “a period of tectonic political change,” Robinson said.

“Radical new ideas came on the table as the fixed and daunting structures of the external world—monarchy, lords, church—crumbled.”

“This was a world turned upside down,” he said. “And from that world turned upside down, all sorts of things started happening: economic things, political things, institutional things, cultural things.”

Durlauf framed the discussion around time, contingencies and inequality.

Different forces, he argued, operate on different timescales. Short-term growth may be driven by factors like technology or savings rates, but deeper forces unfold over centuries. And unpredictable “shocks” can reshape trajectories for generations.

“There are shocks to systems that are so persistent that the theory has to do with the shocks, rather than to the mechanisms themselves,” he said.

He added, “growth changes everything.”

“It creates all these possibilities, but it also creates capacities for stratification,” keeping wealth and power stuck in the same hands.

When conversation turned to the present, Guerrieri said that China’s rapid economic rise was not such a surprise. What is surprising, she continued, is the extent to which Europe is lagging.

Europe lacks a true counterpart to California's Silicon Valley, Durlauf noted, raising an open question about whether the advantages that built the modern economy will carry into the next phase.

—This article was originally published on the Harris website.

Deep in the ice, Antarctic detectors pick up incoming cosmic rays from outer space

Louise Lerner — 05/06/2026 - 11:25am

More than 600 feet below the surface of Antarctica, ultrasensitive detectors picked up the tracks of cosmic rays crashing down from outer space.

The Askaryan Radio Array is a group of sensors drilled deep into the ice. For years, the array has been patiently listening for faint radio signals near the South Pole.

In a study published last month, University of Chicago researchers announced that new analysis techniques revealed 13 events where cosmic rays produce particle showers in the ice. This marks the first time that scientists have detected these particle showers through ice, which offers a chance to study never-before-seen aspects of the phenomenon.

“When these particles strike the ice, they produce a burst of radio waves that is a bit like a sonic boom,” said UChicago postdoctoral fellow Philipp Windischhofer, one of the study’s two main authors.

The Askaryan Radio Array was designed to hunt for high-energy neutrinos, an extremely rare cosmic particle. But new data analysis techniques may be revealing it to be an unexpected boon for the wider study of particles from space. Even after the researchers’ landmark findings, more than seven years of data remains to be studied; scientists hope to learn more about elusive cosmic rays—and perhaps finally catch the signal of a neutrino.

“We’re looking forward to analyzing the rest of the data and hopefully, gaining new insights into the highest-energy phenomena in our universe,” Windischhofer said.

The paper is published in Physical Review Letters.

Visitors from outer space

Neutrinos are extremely difficult to catch, as they very rarely interact with matter. But they are a unique window into the wildest phenomena in the universe, like supermassive black holes and exploding stars.

The Askaryan Radio Array, run by an international collaboration of scientists from the U.S., Europe, and Asia led by Prof. Amy Connolly at The Ohio State University, was designed to pick up such very high-energy neutrinos from space. The first prototype was installed in 2011; UChicago scientists Eric Oberla and Cosmin Deaconu developed and built the newest section, deployed in 2018.

However, as scientists initially analyzed the data that came in from this new instrument, located near the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, they didn’t see any signs of neutrinos.

The signals were coming from the wrong direction. Neutrinos were more likely to be picked up as they traveled upward through the two kilometers of solid ice below the station.

Then-graduate student Kaeli Hughes, PhD’22, noted there were a few neutrino-like signals, but they were coming from above the array. She hypothesized that some might be cosmic rays, but no one had yet developed the analytic tools to confirm it.

Over the following eight years, however, science and analytic tools advanced. And a group decided to take another look at the data.

As they combed through, Windischhofer and graduate student Nathaniel Alden were surprised to see clear hits for a different kind of visitor from space: cosmic rays.

The same extreme events—like supernovae—that make neutrinos also produce cosmic rays, which are actually atoms with their outer layers stripped away to leave just a nucleus. When an incoming cosmic ray strikes an atom on Earth, the collision creates a characteristic shower of secondary particles, which the array’s detectors picked up in the ice.

A big difference between cosmic rays and neutrinos is that cosmic rays have a charge. This means their paths get scrambled by magnetic fields on the way to Earth, so scientists can’t trace them back to whatever supernova or black hole might have spawned them.

But each visitor from outer space has something to tell us.

“By studying what elements these cosmic rays are, you can learn about the abundance of elements in the universe and what is accelerating them to such high energies,” explained Alden.

Early findings help to improve hunt for neutrinos

The array also offers a unique perspective on cosmic rays. For one, it looks at higher energy particles than most other cosmic ray experiments. It’s also the only detector that measures how the signals travel through ice.

“This means the Askaryan Radio Array can probe the very dense inner core of the cosmic ray shower, which is very hard to do with other setups,” said Windischhofer.

Finally, the detection marks the first time that a phenomenon known as Askaryan radiation has been observed by itself “in the wild.”

This type of radiation, first predicted in 1962 by Armenian physicist Gurgen Askaryan, occurs when a particle traveling with very high energy smacks into an unsuspecting atom inside ice or similar material on Earth. The collision produces a shower of secondary particles, which travel through the ice at very nearly the speed of light. This effect had been created artificially in the lab, but it had never before been used to actually detect a particle from the cosmos.

As the team members comb through the rest of the array’s data, they expect to find more cosmic rays, but possibly neutrinos as well.

“In that sense, it’s a nice stepping stone because you haven’t seen a neutrino yet, but now you have seen the same signature that you would expect for a neutrino in your detector, and so you’re able to try out ideas that people have had about how to look for both these particles,” said Alden.

“It is not often that a graduate student walks into your office and shows you a plot that says something truly new about nature that you’ve not seen before,” said Prof. Abby Vieregg, David N. Schramm Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and senior author on the paper.

“Seeing high energy cosmic rays for the first time through their radio emission in ice is important not just for characterizing cosmic rays in a new way, but also for allowing us a glimpse of what the highest energy neutrino signals could look like some day in the detectors we’ve spent years building,” she said.

Citation: “Observation of in-ice Askaryan radiation from high-energy cosmic rays.” Alden and Windischhofer et al, Physical Review Letters, April 17, 2026.

Funding: National Science Foundation, Taiwan National Science Council, Belgian Fund for Scientific Research, Leverhulme Trust, European Research Council, Belgian American Education Foundation.

A conductor's 50-year crescendo at UChicago

Benjamin Ransom — 05/04/2026 - 04:44pm

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.

With baton in hand, Barbara Schubert steps up to her podium before the University Symphony Orchestra.

The musicians sit at the ready, eyes on their conductor. Tall and poised, Schubert casts her gaze over the players. Then, as she has for the past 50 years, she lifts her arm—and the music starts, rising and swelling to fill Mandel Hall on the University of Chicago campus.

For Schubert, nothing compares to the rush she feels leading the orchestra.

“People say that being a conductor is like having a fatal disease, in that you get bitten by it and then you can't escape because it’s so compelling,” she said. “The exhilaration that comes from experiencing and being an integral part of a live performance, I think is unmatched.”

This devotion to her craft has driven her through a half-century at the front of the ensemble. In that time, she has pushed generations of musicians—students from all fields of study, plus alumni who never quite wanted to leave—to perform works that would challenge even professional orchestras. In the process, Schubert built a community that, for many, has been a defining piece of their UChicago experience.

This May, nearly 100 alumni who've played for Schubert will return to Mandel Hall to take the stage with her again. The Opus 50 concerts, May 9 and 10, are the Department of Music's tribute to her work at the podium and beyond.

Over the course of the weekend, they’ll present music from Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler, sit in on open rehearsals and swap stories from five decades as they reconnect with classmates they haven't seen since college.

For some, the orchestra has become a family tradition. Alumnus violinist Alexandra Hobaugh, now a lawyer, met her husband Michael when they were both students in the orchestra. Years later, their two daughters followed them into the orchestra to play with Schubert as well.

"She's created a space for creativity in our lives and helped souls bloom—whether they knew it at the time or not," Hobaugh said.

Schubert as a maestra in the making

The first piece Schubert ever conducted with the orchestra was Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, a tone poem exploring the death of an artist.

It was 1976. A first-year graduate student at UChicago, she asked the conductor at the time—a medievalist scholar leading the orchestra more out of necessity—if she could guest-conduct. He said yes. One thing led to another, Schubert said, and she was appointed full-time.

“When I started out, I didn't have much experience at all,” she said. “I went to conducting camp at the Monteux School to learn the craft, but most importantly, to learn how to immerse myself in the experience of studying, learning and interpreting the score—and then how to translate that to the musicians.”

Monteux, an acclaimed center in Maine, marked the beginning of a serious training arc. By 1985, she was selected for the prestigious Tanglewood Seminar for Conductors, where she worked with Leonard Bernstein and other major figures. Through the decades after, she continued to hone her skills through workshops and collaborations, later serving as president of the International Conductor's Guild.

Outside of the University, she has led the DuPage Symphony for nearly 40 years and was named Illinois Conductor of the Year in 2003. At UChicago, she has dedicated herself to running the Performance Program, providing support to over a dozen ensembles, and is a senior lecturer in the Music Department.

But across her many collaborations with both academic units and performers, every moment that has come to define the orchestra has had Schubert at its center.

“I'm always really impressed by how Barbara is committed to cooperating and coordinating with other fields,” said David Shepherd, a UChicago alumnus and orchestra bassist since 1989. “Being on a university campus, I think it's so enriching that Barbara helps to integrate us with academic life.”

Though serious in the rehearsal room, she’s also brought a light-hearted approach to her work. She conducted the 1812 Overture by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the University's centennial celebration, with then-President Hanna Holborn Gray pulling the rope to "fire" a papier-mâché cannon on cue.

And in 1981, when Mandel Hall was being renovated and the orchestra was displaced into a gymnasium with bad acoustics, she invented what has since become an institution: the annual Halloween concert, complete with a themed program, a costumed conductor and an elaborate entrance down the center aisle.

Now, families across Hyde Park plan their autumns around it. The first Halloween performance is for children, who often arrive in costumes of their own.

Over the years, Schubert has ridden in on a shark for a Jaws-themed program, dressed as Brünnhilde for Richard Wagner, and conducted Gustav Holst's The Planets as Jane Jetson. She declines to disclose what she's planning for next year. The idea, she said, usually arrives in the summer.

"It will come to me in one big vision," she said.

Pushing musical boundaries

On a given evening, the orchestra’s musicians might rehearse with a bomba ensemble from Puerto Rico, learn a new piano concerto co-commissioned by the orchestra itself, or work through the score to a restored 1925 Sergei Eisenstein silent film for its American premiere.

“It challenges me intellectually and emotionally. I like to bring that tremendous diversity to our audiences, but also to our students,” said Schubert. “They like that big challenge that I put in front of them, and that's what keeps us going.”

Universities without a performance degree—UChicago among them—don't typically program like this. But Schubert has spent 50 years doing it anyway, finding music her players may never have seen before and didn’t know they could play. To get them there, she moves quickly in rehearsals to diagnose what musicians need to fix in the practice room.

"She's very good at adjusting to what the orchestra needs at that particular rehearsal," said violinist Anna-Sofia Hobaugh, daughter of Alexandra and Michael, who graduated from the College last year. "She makes sure that we're hitting the benchmarks we need to that day."

A living legacy

Though Schubert will continue at the helm after the Opus 50 culmination, the weekend’s headline performances carry a poetic echo of her earliest days at UChicago.

While she began her University conducting career with a piece about death, she's now celebrating 50 years at the podium with Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.

Eighty minutes long, scored for 100-plus players, including a full chorus and brass section, it culminates in a final movement that moves from despair to transcendence.

“It's an incredibly compelling piece, almost overwhelming in terms of the range of emotions that it expresses and the types of colors that it has,” said Schubert, “so it seemed like a wonderful goal as a culminating event.”

It's a fitting choice for a conductor who has spent five decades insisting that music is not just something you study, but something you do. During the Opus 50 performances, Schubert said she’ll be “concentrating to the maximum on the piece of music at hand.”

“I think it's before and after that I'll be reflecting about the 50 years, but at the moment of conducting, the most important thing is to have my complete focus and the absolute attention to detail that I can muster through every microsecond of the performance,” she said. “After that, I'll probably cry—and celebrate with everybody as well.”

—Reporting contributed by MacKenzie Tucker

UChicago announces 2026 Diversity Leadership Award recipients

05/04/2026 - 04:30pm

The Diversity Leadership Awards honor members of the University of Chicago community who advance the University’s commitment to diversity of thought, perspective and experience. This year’s awards honored programs that foster meaningful collaboration and encourage rigorous engagement.

“The 2026 Diversity Leadership Award honorees embody the spirit and power of collaborative innovation and inclusive engagement that we value deeply at the University of Chicago,” said Waldo E. Johnson Jr., vice provost for diversity and inclusion. “Their work demonstrates how diverse perspectives enrich our academic mission and serves as a reminder of our commitment to advancing a culture of respect, opportunity, and belonging here on campus and beyond.”

Click through the links below to watch a video explaining each project or view them all on our YouTube page.

Logan Center Community Arts, represented by the following leaders from the Logan Center:

Emily Hooper Lansana
Mashaune Hardy
Ndosi Mapula
Elizabeth Myles
Hope Houston

UChicago Youth Internship Program, represented by:

Emily Cracolici, Assistant Director of Career Readiness Initiatives, Office of Civic Engagement

Access UChicago, represented by:

Marquetta Scott, Director, UChicago Access Now
Charnessa Warren, Director, Student Disability Services

El Cafecito, represented by:

Veronica Moraga, Associate Instructional Professor in Spanish

Chicago EYES on Cancer, represented by:

Eileen Dolan, Professor of Medicine; Deputy Director of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center
Megan Mekinda, Director for Education, Training and Evaluation, UChicago Comprehensive Cancer Center
Rosie Huggins, Assistant Director, Cancer Research Education, UChicago Comprehensive Cancer Center
Michelle Domecki, Education Program Manager, UChicago Comprehensive Cancer Center

The Inclusion Menu, represented by:

Tobias Spears, Associate Dean, Community/Divisional Values

Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Research Center (HAARC), represented by:

Phyllis Timpo, Director of Community Engagement, Outreach and Recruitment, HAARC

UChicago student goes behind the lens at the White House

Colin Terrill — 05/04/2026 - 10:46am

This spring, student journalist Nathaniel Rodwell-Simon dove into the White House press pool with camera in hand.

He had less than a week to make his mark. A third-year history major at the University of Chicago, he’d been invited by New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills—a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a 40-year veteran of the White House press pool—to shadow him on the job.

“I’m not someone who gets overwhelmed easily, but the offer left me speechless,” said Rodwell-Simon.

An avid photographer himself, Rodwell-Simon had just become managing editor of the Chicago Maroon student newspaper. Over four days during spring break in Washington D.C., he got his own press pass that allowed him to attend White House briefings, board meetings and Senate hearings, shooting photos at official events alongside the pool.

Rodwell-Simon had to quickly learn the ins and outs of working in a place where meetings and events are constantly taking place and news can break at any moment.

“I immediately felt like I had a lot more responsibility to use the access that I was given prudently, to uphold the sort of standards that are expected of every other press member when they are on Capitol Hill,” he said.

He landed the opportunity as a Katharine Graham Fellow with the College’s Parrhesia Program for Public Thought and Discourse program. Nora Titone, a senior director at Parrhesia, said the College fellowship challenges students to invite “nationally renowned figures who are exemplars” of the program’s spirit of free expression to visit campus for programming, panels and seminars.

Rodwell-Simon said Mills was “immediately at the top of my list.”

“In covering every president since the Ronald Reagan administration, he has so much knowledge about the way journalism and photojournalism has evolved over that time,” he said.

Mills had already been invited to campus for a joint Parrhesia and Institute of Politics event in May. Titone put Rodwell-Simon in contact with the photojournalist with a pitch to collaborate and feature his work. While working on a plan for an online exhibition before bringing him to campus for several in-person events—including on his Pulitzer-winning photograph of President Donald Trump immediately after he was shot in 2024—Mills extended an invitation to Rodwell-Simon to join him covering various events across Washington, D.C.

Rodwell-Simon said he was “incredibly excited and honored” by the offer. After Mills and the New York Times helped him get his weeklong press credentials, the student journalist kicked off his time in the capital with a chance to witness an impromptu briefing with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt the moment he entered the White House grounds. He also attended several other meetings, from a Trump Kennedy Center board meeting to a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Hill and Oval Office events with both Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.

While he had few opportunities to interact directly with ranking government officials, Rodwell-Simon was in constant contact with members of the White House press office who helped him get access with press credentials. Members of the press also shared insights on the profession and how to cover each moment, something that helped him find his footing and made him more comfortable to capture these events.

Outside of the importance of the position, Rodwell-Simon also had to learn the limits of his access—where he could go and what he could do in some of the most well-known locations in the world, each synonymous with U.S. history. Throughout it all, he tried to stay grounded.

“I tried to stay focused on the fact that I was there as a reporter and treated it like any other attempt of trying to get a photograph of a subject,” said Rodwell-Simon. “There is certainly a gravity of being in a space with those who hold the highest positions in government.”

Rodwell-Simon learned as much as he could from the journalists around him, taking advice on everything from different ways to capture the best shot to the newest technologies for photojournalists.

“The main takeaway I had from the experience is just how much experience and reputation matters,” he said. “Every journalist or photojournalist is trying to get information and construct the best reporting they can to deliver the most relevant information to their readers. Those skills take time to develop and require trust from both your subjects and the readers.”

He intends to make that lesson matter most as he guides the Chicago Maroon throughout his upcoming last year in the College. As for the exhibition he is assembling of Mills’ work and his future visits to campus, Rodwell-Simon has one goal in mind while in the curation process.

“What I’m interested in is what it felt like for him behind the camera, capturing these images while essentially being part of every president’s inner circle since the 1980s," he said. “Sometimes when you take a photo, you sort of know the impact that it could have and sometimes you don’t. Those are the stories that I am interested in telling.”

Mills will be a guest on campus beginning with the May 6 event “Witness in the White House: How New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills frames the first draft of history” at the Quadrangle Club with a dinner for 70 undergraduates co-hosted by the Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse, student writers for the Maroon and The Gate student magazine.

He’ll also hold an event open to the public hosted by the Institute of Politics and Parrhesia entitled “The Man who Shot the President being shot: Photographing 7 presidencies with Doug Mills” on May 7 at Ida Noyes Hall before concluding the week with the photography workshop “Breaking Down the Shot: A Photography Workshop with Doug Mills of the New York Times” hosted by Parrhesia and held for undergraduate students at the Smart Museum on May 8.

UChicago chemists 'film' light-matter hybrid particles

Maureen Searcy — 05/01/2026 - 01:15pm

To capture a crisp image of a hummingbird in flight, which can flap its wings up to 200 times per second, a photographer needs a camera with an extremely fast shutter speed.

But what if your target is smaller than a single chromosome and can travel at velocities approaching lightspeed? Conventional cameras, no matter how advanced, are limited by the nature of light. You would need a special device and an innovative method to film such a tiny, speedy subject.

In a study published in Nature Communications, UChicago chemists designed just such an ultrafast “camera.” They used it to capture polaritons—quasiparticles made of both light and matter —moving through a special crystal that can steer their direction.

The researchers observed polaritons traveling across long distances, zipping across a flake of the crystal—providing the matter part of the quasiparticle—without losing energy or fading out as quickly as expected.

“Normally, light interacts with matter in a way that doesn’t care about orientation. It’s all the same in any direction. But what happens when that’s no longer true?” asked Sarah King, assistant professor of chemistry and co-author on the study. “Directly observing polaritons moving in one direction on the nanoscale can help us understand how we can control how light and matter interact.”

The team’s results suggest that the kind of crystal they used is ideal for photonic technology, such as computer chips used in quantum computing that use light instead of electricity. The results also provide insight into the interaction between light and matter.

Opening new possibilities

One challenge to developing advanced, light-based technologies is the ability to control microscopic beams of light.

Pure light is wild—it moves in all directions, spreads out, and fades. But when light fuses with matter as a polariton, it can be more easily manipulated.

For the study, the researchers used hybrids made from photons and a layered crystalline material called molybdenum oxydichloride (MoOCl2, informally pronounced moo-kul).

Polaritons are like little cars that can be steered in a particular direction, and the crystal has special properties that make it even more useful for controlling light. It behaves differently depending on which direction you go. It acts like a conductive metal in one direction and an insulator in another direction.

Imagine roads with curbs and medians. Driving straight down the road is easy, but driving crossways over the curbs would slow you down significantly. Simply rotating the crystal could tune the quasiparticle’s motion and properties—speed, size, distance, direction, and even grip.

Materials with these natural guardrails eliminate the need for engineers to build walls or tunnels to direct the hybrid particles.

“This work could enable technologies that rely on guiding light at extremely small scales, such as advanced optical circuits and high-resolution imaging tools,” said Atreyie Ghosh, a postdoctoral scholar in King’s group and co–first author. “By allowing light to travel farther with less loss while staying tightly confined, it opens new possibilities for more efficient and precise control of light.”

The “camera”

King’s team used a technique called time-resolved photoemission electron microscopy, which combines a laser’s ease of use with an electron microscope’s ability to capture extremely small subjects.

“We know how to control photons—we can control their time, temporal profile, energy, and polarization,” said King. But optical microscopes can’t clearly image anything smaller than half the wavelength of visible light. That is a miniscule distance, yet a light-matter quasiparticle is still a fraction of that size.

“On the other hand, it’s very difficult to control an electron’s time, energy, or polarization,” she continued, “but the diffraction limit of the electron is much smaller. So we’re taking the best of both worlds to image these types of dynamics in space and time.”

The set-up works by shooting a laser at the crystal, which produces polaritons and sends them racing down the “street.” The team then shoots another laser at the crystal in a way that does not create hybrids but still ejects electrons. Some of those electrons combine energy with the quasiparticles, and they “light up,” which the microscope can capture in a snapshot.

The team ran the race over and over, waiting longer between starting and taking a snapshot, capturing images at different checkpoints along the quasiparticles’ path. Together, the snapshots form a “molecular movie,” said King.

Through this movie, they saw the hybrid particles travel three times as far as had previously been measured in this crystal.

“It’s astonishing to observe such long propagation lengths in real time,” said Calvin Raab, a graduate student in the King group and co–first author. “We can watch the polariton travel across the MoOCl2 flakes and reflect off the edges of the material. It’s not often you can actually see quasiparticles bouncing around inside a 2D material in real space.”

Material matters

The results are exciting because MoOCl2 is an air-stable material that can be easily peeled apart into high-quality 2D flakes using simple methods, and all measurements are performed at room temperature, explained Ghosh. “The demonstration of long polariton propagation lengths under such practical conditions positions MoOCl2 as a highly promising platform for next-generation optoelectronic devices.”

MoOCl2 is also one of the first materials with direction-dependent rules built into the crystalline structure that can form quasiparticles using visible light, which is useful because “that’s the world that we live in,” said King. “A lot of our technologies have been developed for visible frequencies.”

The work raises several fundamental questions about the crystal: just how reactive are its atoms to light? Can researchers modify its properties? Can they twist and stack layers to achieve different quantum behaviors? Can they further refine and control its electromagnetic properties?

There are many directions the team might pursue in its investigation into this material. Their ultimate goal is to find new ways to control light, said King, and “to interrogate, for example, some of the beautiful work that’s happening here at the University in quantum information science.”

Citation: “Spatiotemporal visualization of long-range anisotropic plasmon polaritons in hyperbolic MoOCl2.” Ghosh, A., Raab, C., Spellberg, J.L. et al. Nat Commun (2026)

Funding: Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.

—A version of this story was originally published on the University of Chicago Physical Sciences Division website.

At UChicago event, former U.S. officials warn Iran war is ‘unraveling’ trust in NATO

Julian Veenstra-VanderWeele — 05/01/2026 - 12:53pm

Two months into the Iran war, requests from the United States to its longtime NATO partners for direct military support in the conflict have been largely declined, with some allies publicly criticizing the campaign.

At a recent event at the University of Chicago, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the war is straining relations within the treaty organization—and could even push European allies to consider closer alignment with China.

"It will be impossible to rebuild all of this world order,” Campbell said, cautioning future U.S. administrations of long-term diplomatic consequences. “Do not expect European friends to be grateful that you’re back.”

Campbell was the principal architect of U.S. strategy toward China under the administration of former President Joe Biden. He appeared at UChicago on April 17 with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and moderator Prof. Robert Pape for the fifth annual Hagel Lecture on Civil Politics and International Security, hosted by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST).

The two veteran diplomats said the foreign policy of President Donald Trump’s administration has tested relationships with European allies—from tensions over Greenland to divisions over the war in Iran. They both described a critical need for the U.S. to rebuild the post-World War II system of rules and international institutions emphasizing diplomacy rather than war to resolve disputes.

“This world order that we built with our allies is systematically unraveling, and that is so damn dangerous,” said Hagel, a former U.S. senator who served in the administration of former President Barack Obama. “If there were ever a time that America needed allies or friends, it’s certainly now.”

NATO fractures over Iran war

Since the U.S. and Israel first launched joint missile strikes at Iran on Feb. 28, the Trump administration has repeatedly implored NATO members to join the war effort and help secure the Strait of Hormuz. But no ally has committed forces, and while Germany has offered limited logistical support, other nations have made their disapproval clear.

Pape, who is the director of CPOST, said this comes as the administration has “aggressively challenged core pillars” of the international order.

“With the broad tariffs and now the Iran war, the administration particularly challenged the principles of working with allies prior to consequential decisions and only pursuing war as a last resort,” he said.  

Germany was given advance notice of the strikes in Iran, but other allies were not. France and Italy have since restricted U.S. military access, while Spain has gone further—closing its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the conflict.

“Who can blame them?” Campbell said when asked why most allies have refused to help. “They had no consultation in advance and do not understand why they are being asked to help now.”

The Iran war is part of a larger trend within world politics, the speakers asserted—the gap between America and its allies is widening.

“We are essentially isolating ourselves,” said Hagel. “Anybody that says that America doesn’t need anyone else needs to go back to the history books. We are global citizens and interdependent on each other.”

This distance is affecting the relationship even with stalwart allies such as Denmark, said Campbell. The Nordic nation was one of the 12 founding members of NATO in 1949 and has supported numerous U.S. military actions since, including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, after the Trump administration’s rhetoric about Greenland, Campbell said a new wariness set in. Danish politicians were appalled by suggestions the U.S. might either buy or seize the territory to protect against threats from Russia and China, and NATO members warned such action would effectively collapse the alliance.

At a recent dinner at the Danish ambassador’s home in Washington, D.C., Campbell was told that Denmark now “looks at the U.S. as a potential hostile nation,” Campbell said.

“American leadership is still going to be essential,” Campbell said. “But when we come back and say trust us, will any really smart country ever trust us again?”

Scientists get best-ever look at distant planet’s surface with Webb Telescope

Louise Lerner — 05/01/2026 - 12:13pm

Astronomers have found thousands of worlds in faraway star systems, but one of the questions that’s been hardest to answer is the one that immediately jumps to any human mind: What does the planet look like?

Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, a group of scientists including several with the University of Chicago has gotten the best-ever look at an exoplanet’s surface.

By analyzing subtle changes in light, researchers found the planet Kua’kua—which orbits a small star in the constellation Indus—has a dark, solid surface, possibly made of basalt or a related type of rock. It probably doesn’t have plate tectonics like Earth does, and very little if any atmosphere.

In addition to providing a glimpse into the planet’s physical appearance, these factors can help us understand the different types of worlds that exist in the universe. They can also narrow the search for potentially habitable planets by revealing whether they’ve ever had water, active geology, or other conditions that might support life.

“This technique can tell us about how the rocks on this planet formed and what processes shaped it over the planet’s lifetime,” said Brandon Coy, a graduate student at UChicago and co-author on the paper. “There’s a lot of cool things we can do with this data.”

The program’s primary investigator was Laura Kreidberg, PhD’16, of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, and the first author was Sebastian Zieba of the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

How scientists study an exoplanet’s surface

Though we now know of more than 6,000 exoplanets, they’re generally too small and far away to be directly looked at, even with the most powerful telescopes. Instead, scientists must tease out clues about these planets with clever workarounds.

One of these techniques is known as the “secondary eclipse technique.” In this method, you map the light coming from the system, then wait for the planet to dip behind the star as part of its regular orbit. The difference between the readings is the light from the planet itself. Scientists can use this data to get a sense of the molecules in the planet’s atmosphere and other details.

This technique works well for big gas planets, similar to Jupiter, that are close to their stars.

“Unfortunately, the smaller worlds are harder to see,” said Edwin Kite, associate professor of geophysical sciences at UChicago and a study co-author, “but they’re the ones most relevant to fragile carbon-based beings like us.”

Luckily, scientists have a powerful new tool on their side: “The James Webb Space Telescope has really opened up a new era in characterizing these rocky planets,” said Coy.

Kite, Coy, and the team used the telescope to focus on a planet known as Kuaꞌkua, or LHS 3844 b by its formal scientific name, which is 48 light-years away from Earth, meaning it would take 48 years to travel there even at the speed of light. Kua’kua is about twice the mass of Earth, but is much closer to its sun and zips around it faster—its “year,” the time it takes to complete a full trip around its host star, is the equivalent of 0.5 Earth days.

By analyzing data from three secondary eclipses with different models, they were able to put together a striking amount of detail about the planet.

Kua’kua’s surface appears to be very dark, most likely made up of basalt or similar rock—much like the rock you might see in Iceland or Hawaii. The planet is probably covered in a dark, weathered powder, as our moon and Mercury are. And there’s no signature in the readings for an atmosphere with carbon dioxide, or even a sulfurous one belched from volcanoes.

The color is of particular interest because a lighter-colored surface might have indicated a granite crust, which on Earth, is made in the presence of water and could also have indicated the presence of plate tectonics. It’s been theorized that Earth’s plate tectonics are key to keeping the planet's climate stable and habitable for life, so scientists are keen to understand how common they might be in the other planets of the universe.

Combining the new findings with data from previous missions paints a picture of the planet: a dark, dry, rocky, unmoving surface, with a thin atmosphere if any at all. One side of the planet always faces its star, so that side is constantly cooked by the sun to 1,300ºF and the other side is shrouded in darkness.

You probably aren’t putting Kua’kua on your vacation shortlist. But each planet we learn about tells us more about how planets form—and by extension, how to look for planets friendlier to Earth life.

“We've only got four rocky planets in our solar system, and they're very diverse. Some have atmospheres and some don't, one is habitable and three aren't—and one used to be habitable. So we just don't have a big enough sample size to understand how these objects operate,” said Kite. “The more we learn about these other planets, the better we understand the ingredients that make for stable, habitable planets.”

As for Kua’kua, plans are underway to use the Webb Telescope to try to get a snapshot of how rough the planet’s surface is and other details—which would be another first.

The study made use of observations by the James Webb Space Telescope and the TESS mission, as well as the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

Citation: “The dark and featureless surface of rocky exoplanet LHS 3844 b from JWST mid-infrared spectroscopy.” Zieba et al, Nature Astronomy, May 4, 2026.

Funding: NASA, NSFC, Eugene V. Cota-Robles Award, Nathan P. Myhrvold Graduate Fellowship.

Two UChicago scientists elected to National Academy of Sciences in 2026

04/30/2026 - 09:30am

Two University of Chicago scholars have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, joining other scientists and researchers chosen in “recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Profs. Chuan He and Joseph Thornton are among the 120 new members elected this year. They are honored for their groundbreaking work in biochemistry and biology, respectively.

Chuan He is the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

He is an expert in the field of nucleic acid chemistry and biology, in particular RNA modification biology and RNA-mediated regulation. He was the first to champion the idea that modifications to RNA are reversible and can control gene expression. His work is foundational to developing potential therapies that target RNA modification effectors against human diseases such as cancer.

He’s team was the first to identify eraser proteins, which can undo changes made to RNA molecules, which sparked the emergence of epitranscriptome research. They also explained how RNA methylation functions through characterizing reader proteins—processes that known to play critical roles in many types of cancer.

He has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His honors also include the 2023 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, the 2023 Tetrahedron Prize, and the 2023 Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year in Life Sciences.

Joseph Thornton is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution and the Department of Human Genetics.

Thornton studies the mechanisms by which protein functions evolve. His lab phylogenetically reconstructs the histories of ancient proteins and then synthesizes, manipulates, and experimentally characterizes them. This approach allows them to address fundamental questions about the nature of evolutionary processes, such as how complex molecular systems evolve, how the biophysical structure of proteins has shaped their evolution, and the role of chance and historical contingency in producing the diverse proteins of present-day organisms. His former trainees are now leading evolutionary researchers at institutions across the world.

Thornton also co-directs the University of Chicago’s NIH-funded Genetic Mechanisms and Evolution predoctoral training program and is a founding member of the Ecology and Evolution DEI Committee, a collective of students, faculty, and postdocs devoted to creating a research and educational environment in which students and scientists of diverse backgrounds and identities can thrive.

Previously, Thornton was also the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the National Council on Science Education’s Darwin Award for advancing public understanding of evolution, the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award, and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship.

How one researcher took on Chicago's school dropout crisis

Tori Lee — 04/29/2026 - 09:51am

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 the early 2000s, around half of students enrolled in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduated from high school. While investigating the problem, University of Chicago Prof. Melissa Roderick discovered a key insight: Ninth grade is a pivotal intervention year to prevent school dropout.

This finding catalyzed two decades of research by Roderick and her colleagues at the UChicago Consortium of School Research. Using their research, CPS launched a Freshman On-Track system to monitor 9th graders in danger of slipping through the cracks. It paid off.

In 2023, the school district hit a historic high graduation rate of 85%.

Roderick, the Hermon Dunlap Smith Professor at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, has spent a career devoted to urban school reform. Her research on CPS led to new interventions, strategies, and partnerships that have improved graduation rates and helped create a pathway to college—making a profound and sustained impact in the lives of thousands of young people.

Now, on the eve of her retirement, Roderick leaves behind a legacy that has reshaped how Chicago educates its most vulnerable students.

“Melissa wants educational systems to work for all students. Her research was instrumental in improving CPS attendance and graduation rates,” said Crown colleague Prof. Julia Henly. “This is a key legacy that should make her—and all of us at the Crown Family School—extremely proud.”

‘What does the research say?’

Growing up in Fall River, Massachusetts, one of the poorest cities in the state, Roderick recalls entering high school with five neighborhood friends. By 11th grade, she was the only one left.

“Basically, I’ve been working on this problem since I was 14,” she said.

Roderick’s research on 9th grade formally began as a young researcher on a national dropout prevention program. Staff were debating when the best time was to catch kids before they dropped out. One administrator turned to her and asked: “You’re the hotshot Harvard researcher. What does the research say?”

The question seemed simple enough. Answering it was difficult. National data sets didn’t start early enough and school systems like Boston had no pre-high school electronic grades.

So, she decided to go home.

As part of her dissertation research, Roderick spent weeks in the records building basement back in Fall River. She identified a 4th-grade cohort of 757 students from homeroom registers and hand copied their transcripts.

The results were extraordinary. Grade declines were so dramatic in the transition to high school that she initially thought she must have made a mistake merging the files.

She hadn’t.

After publishing her dissertation in 1991, Roderick came to Chicago to join the faculty of the Crown Family School, then the School of Social Service Administration. With start-up support from Crown and a team of doctoral students, she was determined to understand the story behind the numbers.

Roderick’s research team followed 100 students from three elementary schools as they moved from 8th grade into CPS high schools, interviewing them regularly—something she had never done as a quantitative researcher.

“Melissa taught me that you have to be on the ground,” said former student Susan Stone, now the dean of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, “with students, their parents, teachers, principals and district leaders, to fully see opportunities and hazards.”

A familiar pattern emerged. When the seemingly stable cohort of 8th graders entered high school, things took a turn.

“They went into 9th grade, and they all fell apart quickly,” said Roderick, who now had the evidence she needed. “Ultimately, the graduation rate of students in my qualitative sample matched the graduation rate of their larger cohort. If we were going to do something about the dropout problem, we had to focus on 9th grade.”

From research to practice

Roderick’s unique qualitative and quantitative blend became a hallmark of her research, leading to her directorship at the Consortium on Chicago School Research and two decades of research on the 9th grade transition.

In 2006, CPS leadership began a new initiative focused on increasing the number of 9th graders “on track” for graduation—an indicator developed by the Consortium. Freshmen are considered “on track” if they have enough credits to move on to the tenth grade and have earned no more than one F.

The centerpiece of the initiative was a new tracking tool that allowed high schools to monitor freshman grades and attendance—and intervene quickly when students began to have difficulty.

That same year, Roderick cofounded the Network for College Success with high school principals Mary Ann Pitcher and Sarah Duncan. The network helps school leaders use data and create effective systems to monitor and support students around freshman-on-track and college enrollment.

The results were immediate.

Between 2007 and 2017, the 9th-grade OnTrack rate increased by 28%. Roderick and Consortium researchers also found that increased on-track rates led to increased graduation rates.

“Melissa is this force of nature,” said Arne Duncan, former CEO of CPS. “She’s passionate about fighting for kids and really trying to do the right thing. Unequivocally, she made me better—she made my team better. I’m forever grateful for her contributions.”

‘Do it for the kids’

Colleagues praise Roderick’s sharp insights delivered with her characteristic directness.

Her passion to conduct research with real-world impact—to “do it for the kids”—has inspired generations of students and educators.

“What has always distinguished Melissa’s work is her unwavering commitment to ensuring that research makes a difference where it matters most—in the lives of young people,” said Prof. Deborah Gorman-Smith, dean of the Crown Family School. “She didn’t just identify the importance of the ninth-grade transition; she translated that insight into tools and practices that schools could use, changing how they support students and, in turn, changing trajectories for thousands of young people. That is the mark of a truly extraordinary scholar.”

Roderick’s work—and her emphasis on building systems—continues at the Kersten Institute for Urban Education, the To & Through Initiative, the Network for College Success and research at the Consortium.

“Melissa pushed us all to think not only about the quality of the analysis, but about what responsibility we had to educators,” said Shanette Porter, Learning and Development Group director at the Consortium. “She asked questions like: What will this help educators see that they couldn’t see before? How will this move the system forward?”

Through it all, Roderick says her time at Crown was instrumental to her career path.

“At the Crown Family School, they care about solving problems. It enabled me to be who I was,” she said. “If someone were to write a sentence about me 20 years from now, it would be: She was a Crown School faculty member.”

Court Theatre’s ‘Out Here’ rebuilds the queer musical from the ground up

Tori Lee — 04/28/2026 - 10:55am

In a typical musical, it’s normal—expected even—for someone to burst into song. But in Out Here, an original production premiering at Court Theatre, the Tony Award-winning theater on the University of Chicago campus, characters don’t take a single note for granted.

Under the beautifully lit frame of a house (one that feels purposely under construction), characters meditate on when, why and even how they sing.

Out Here, which celebrated its world premiere on April 18, follows Dawn, a 50-something-year-old who wants to divorce her husband Brian, reunite with her ex-girlfriend Robin and have everyone be ok.

“This musical aims to adapt the complexity of ‘changing scripts’ mid-life into an equally complex musical-theater form,” said bookwriter and lyricist Leslie Buxbaum, a professor of the Practice in the Arts on the Committee on Theater & Performance Studies at UChicago.

Incubated at UChicago with support from the Neubauer Collegium, the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and within the classroom, the experimental work purposely plays with form—testing boundaries between singer and actor, musician and character, audience and performer.

Though the production takes on modern and classic themes—family drama, rekindling old love, a coming out story—its creators hope to deconstruct, “queer” and rebuild them in a brand-new way.

“There's room for art to become more dialogical, more complex,” said Out Here dramaturg Prof. David Levin. “And I think the University of Chicago is the perfect laboratory space for precisely that kind of exploratory work.”

Out Here runs through May 10 and tickets are on sale now.

Making a UChicago ‘Undo-sical’

In 2019, Buxbaum started writing with no expectations. Inspired by events in her own life, and accounts of other mid-life folks living their own, a play began to take shape.

“This is a story that hasn't been told a lot,” said Buxbaum. “It’s about a woman confronting their role as a mom, their sense of belonging to their home and what they've built.”

At an early point in the creative process, a thought popped into her head: What if I put music to this? What would it do?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Buxbaum participated in Zoom workshops with other theater professionals where she met composer and musician Erin McKeown. As they began to collaborate, McKeown was struck by something unusual in Buxbaum’s script. Typically, lyrics in musical theater are capitalized or italicized. But here, it wasn’t clear what was sung and what was spoken.

This initial formatting gray area inspired a years-long creative experiment.

“We developed a process for deciding where the songs should go, which was totally different than anything I'd ever done before,” McKeown said.

The two joined up with Levin and brought the project to UChicago with support from the Gray Center, which has since 2011 been a forum for experimental collaboration between artists and scholars. Levin and Buxbaum jointly directed the Center during its first five years.

After securing a year of Mellon Fellowship funding in 2022-23, the trio—known affectionately by members of the production as “the tripod”—began to tinker, dubbing the project not so much a musical as an “Undo-sical.”

“‘Undo-sical’ seemed like it captured the energies of invention, of reimagination,” said Levin, a scholar of German opera, film, theater, dance and performance. “We were taking on the form of the musical, playing with it, and, ideally on the other end, reassembling it.”

The lack of pressure around a production timeline enabled the tripod to fully experiment. McKeown created a soundscape with dog bones and typewriters. The margins of Google Docs filled with overlapping comments. Through a series of workshops and staged readings, the tripod brought in other artists, actors, musicians and students.

They wrote and rewrote.

In 2024, the project received additional funding from the Neubauer Collegium’s Arts Labs, another program invested in nurturing innovative arts practice and research on campus.

“Historically, universities have been a really big player in the incubation of new work,” Buxbaum said. “To write something and then gradually get all of this participation, support, enthusiasm and investment, I can't even describe how powerful that is and how grateful I am for it.”

Students on set

As part of the Gray Center Mellon fellowship, the tripod co-taught a new UChicago course called “(re) Queering the American Musical.” Jo Selmeczy, then a first-year student in the College, had never taken a Theater and Performance Studies course before they joined.

“The course was a combination of intense performance theory that David was spearheading, on-your-feet exercises that Leslie was leading, and Erin was having us devise these mini songs,” said Selmeczy, now in their fourth year. “All of these things were entangled in this one class. I loved it. I thought it was so awesome.”

After the course, Buxbaum invited Selmeczy to participate in a workshop for Out Here. They were responsible for reading out the stage directions alongside a company of professional actors. It was the first time they’d seen professional theater in action, which they found both “exciting and inspiring.”

Selmeczy’s college career continued in tandem with Out Here’s development. As they participated in more staged readings, got deeper into theater studies, the musical continued to morph. During the show’s run, Selmeczy will help facilitate the public programming.

“The conceptual work we were doing as a tripod was always in dialogue with not just our colleagues, but also our students,” Levin said. “The students have been essential, utterly central, to the ethos of the work that we've been doing.”

Selmeczy says Out Here was also their first introduction to dramaturgy. Now officially “dramaturgy-pilled,” Selmeczy is currently an intern at Court and has served as dramaturgical assistant for several productions. After graduating this spring with a joint B.A./M.A. in the arts, they will spend this summer at the Oak Park Festival Theatre as a dramaturg.

“It's really been a big turning point for me in terms of how I'm thinking about my career post college,” they said.

Levin says the role of the dramaturg in Out Here is to help the work stay true to the original vision. For the tripod, this means making formally complex, amusing, and imaginative art that lives in “the here and now,” a near-constant process of remaking—even in front of audiences.

“I make theater as a live art form,” Buxbaum said. “This is happening in this moment, with these people, in this room. Yes, the show will be repeated night after night, but it always changes.”

—Tickets for Out Here are available for purchase on the Court Theatre website.

UChicago Medicine to study impact of Formula 1 racing season on performance

04/27/2026 - 12:24pm

Formula 1 racing pushes drivers and their teams to the edge, mentally and physically.

To better understand how they perform under intense pressure, the University of Chicago Medicine and the TGR Haas F1 Team have partnered for a long-term study examining the cumulative demands of a racing season on the mind and body.

Now underway, the “Human Engine” project tracks members of the Haas F1 team aims to develop evidence-based strategies to improve overall health and performance in the as high-stress, sleep-disrupted environments.

The collaboration is the first in Formula 1 to be conducted alongside an academic medical center, bringing clinical and research expertise to the study of team-based performance in elite motorsport.

“Over the course of a season, team members face continuous travel, disrupted sleep cycles and sustained cognitive and physical demands,” said Vineet Arora, the study’s principal investigator and dean for medical education at the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine. “Our goal is to understand how these factors interact over time and to develop targeted interventions that support performance, recovery and well-being. What we learn here has the potential to shape how we support teams in other environments.”

While Formula 1 is recognized for its driver fitness and engineering innovation, little is understood about the mechanics, engineers and staff who support race operations. They must perform as they travel across time zones and work overnight under intense pressure.

"Formula 1 is an incredibly demanding environment, not only for drivers, but for everyone working within the sport," said Ayao Komatsu, team principal of the Haas F1 Team. "As a team, we're always looking to better understand how those demands affect our people and how we can create an environment where our people can operate at their best—both on and off track."

The study involves voluntary participation from traveling Haas F1 team members across functions. UChicago Medicine researchers will use wearable devices, validated surveys and interviews to assess a wide set of health metrics and team dynamics in real-world racing conditions.

The research team includes specialists in sleep medicine, neurology, psychiatry and behavioral science. Led by Arora, they are Kenneth Lee, Jennifer Ghandhi, Alejandra Lastra and Aashna Sunderrajan. All data will be de-identified and analyzed in aggregate.

The research builds on UChicago Medicine's expertise in sleep medicine, circadian health and performance in high-stakes environments, including landmark studies on fatigue, shift work and decision-making in demanding clinical settings. The same questions are increasingly relevant in health care, where teams operate under similar demands.

“The modern Formula 1 schedule is demanding both physically and socially, with extensive travel, jet lag and time away from home,” said Dan Martin, lead performance coach of the Haas F1 Team. “We want to better understand these stressors and use that insight to support health, career longevity and overall team performance.”

The program will begin with longitudinal data collection across the race season, followed by the development and testing of targeted strategies to support sleep, recovery and resilience. Over time, effective approaches will be incorporated into team operations.

Insights from the research are expected to inform broader applications beyond motorsport, including health care, emergency response and other fields where teams must operate effectively under sustained pressure and fatigue. Peer-reviewed publications and broader research outputs are planned following the study's completion.

This initiative builds on UChicago Medicine's sponsorship of the Haas F1 Team, established in 2024, which made UChicago Medicine the first and only health care provider to serve as an official team partner in Formula 1.

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

As Chicago's sports teams angle for new deals, students offer a playbook

Tyler McGaughey — 04/27/2026 - 11:00am

The Chicago Bears and other professional sports teams are rethinking their ties to the city.

This year's Harris Policy Innovation Challenge asked competitors to find new ways to negotiate.

In the annual contest, teams of master's students from the Harris Public Policy School at the University of Chicago pitch proposals aimed at major civic issues—in this case, how the city can adopt a more “win-win” stance to sports investment. Students Charlie Schraw, Christina Tsai and Liz Williams won with a sweeping call to restructure how the city uses its public money to fund stadium deals and set terms with teams.

“Our plan allows the city to come to the negotiating table with leverage, not desperation,” said Williams. “We’re not asking Chicago to construct a wealth of new development—we’re asking it to better use what it already has. We sincerely hope the city considers this plan.”

In their proposal, the team called for the establishment of a new Stadium Securitization Corporation (SSC), modeled after Chicago’s Sales Tax Securitization Corporation (STSC).

The SSC would wall off old and new stadium debt from the city's broader finances, with a legal framework for dedicated stadium revenues to flow straight to bondholders. Pointing to the success of the existing STSC in improving the city’s credit on sales tax debt, the winning team said the same structure could steadily reduce what Chicago owes on its stadiums.

The winning plan also included considerations ranging from hiring requirements for local residents, as well as commitments for affordable housing, public transit access and climate resilience. It would also require alignment with Chicago’s Climate Action Plan and a minimum LEED Gold rating for sports facilities.

Schraw, Tsai and Williams also proposed that stadiums guarantee at least 150 days of annual usage, with 20% or more of those days reserved for community groups. They also called for a 30-year non-relocation covenant for pro sports franchises, aiming to ensure long-term benefits for the city.

The three finalist teams pitched their ideas to a slate of judges from the worlds of business, city government and community development.

They were: David Wells, former CFO of Netflix; Bill Conway, alderman of Chicago’s 34th Ward; Tovah McCord, executive director of Nicor Illinois Community Investment; Mike Parker, former Americas Infrastructure Leader of Ernst & Young; and Derek Douglas, president of the Commercial Club of Chicago and the Civic Committee.

“Every year, our student competitors rise to the occasion with the rigor, thoughtfulness, and depth of their solutions to a pressing local issue,” said Research Professor Justin Marlowe, who directs the Center for Municipal Finance and leads the challenge. “The focus of this year’s contest—the multifaceted issues surrounding Chicago’s professional sports teams—is deeply rooted in the city’s municipal checkbook and civic heart.

“Our finalists this year all delivered novel and deeply considered approaches to a topic of huge significance to the city’s finances—and, indeed, its pride.”

The policy competition began in 2023, with previous installments focused on the city’s unfunded pension liabilities and revitalizing the Loop.

This year’s contest takes place amid a historic era for the city and professional sports, as teams including the Bears, Fire, Sky and Red Stars are all reassessing their relationships with the city.

The Bears’ possible exodus from the city took a recent step forward as the Illinois House of Representatives passed a bill granting the team property-tax certainty should they build a new stadium in suburban Arlington Heights.

Marlowe said this year’s theme brought “fascinating real-world twists and turns” related to the city’s professional sports teams.

“As one example of the real-world importance of the topic, Illinois State Representative Kam Buckner had to leave his seminar with the HPIC participants early so he could head straight to a negotiation session with the Bears,” he said. “It was a perfect illustration of how our students navigated what happens when the landscape changes right in front of you.”

Nearly 90 UChicago students comprising 16 teams took part in the contest, engaging in a six-month seminar where they worked closely with mentors from the public and private sectors.

They also attended lectures from speakers including Steven Mahr, the city of Chicago’s acting CFO, and Danny Ecker, commercial real estate reporter at Crain’s Chicago Business, providing new perspectives and broadening the ideas they brought to their proposals.

The other finalist teams pitched major governance updates of their own.

The proposal from Andres Camacho Baquero, Alison Collard de Beaufort, Joe diTomasso and Taha Rashid included a call to require a voter referendum for any new public subsidies and a long-term restructuring of Soldier Field’s ownership. It also proposed shifting costs and control to private franchises—while keeping teams in the city through long-term lease agreements. Under their plan, Chicago would retain public ownership of pro sports stadiums while offering the tenants full operational control.

The plan presented by Anna Chaeeun Koh, Firouz Niazi and Lyndsey Wang proposed a dual-track model: a new Chicago Sports Authority that would issue revenue-backed bonds to fund stadium-adjacent infrastructure like transit and public space, paired with public minority equity stakes in the teams themselves. The bonds would be repaid from stadium-related revenues rather than the city's general fund.

While the judges deliberated on the three presentations, the finalists fielded questions from the audience and news reporters on subjects including land use, sustainability and transportation policy.

“The annual Policy Innovation Challenge is a vivid illustration of so much of what is best about Harris,” said Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, dean and Sydney Stein Professor at Harris. “These students have not only engaged in serious, engaged thinking and data analysis—they have really gotten their hands dirty to tackle a major real-world policy problem. That is what we are here to do.”

—This article was originally published on the Harris website.

Bernard Roizman, pioneering University of Chicago virologist, 1929–2026

Matt Wood — 04/23/2026 - 02:05pm

Bernard Roizman, the world’s leading expert on herpes simplex virus and the Joseph Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Chicago, died April 13 at the age of 96.

Over a career spanning seven decades, Roizman reshaped the field of virology through his work on the herpes simplex virus, commonly referred to as HSV—a common, lifelong infection responsible for a range of human diseases. He mapped the virus’s genome, defined how it infects host cells, and developed DNA-based techniques that revealed the roles of specific viral genes in infection and replication.

His work laid the foundation for efforts to develop vaccines against HSV, as well as gene therapies and anti-cancer treatments that use modified forms of the virus. Over the course of his career, he authored more than 650 peer-reviewed publications, a body of work that both shaped and reflected the evolution of modern virology.

More than his discoveries, Roizman was renowned for his approach to science itself. He viewed it “as an opportunity to discover the designs in the mosaics of life,” pursuing questions that revealed overarching themes and underlying patterns as opposed to filling in the details.

“Bernard was not only a towering figure in microbiology and virology, but he was also a devoted champion of the University of Chicago, where his passion for discovery and mentorship shaped generations of scientists,” said Shabaana Khader, the Betty and Bernard Roizman Professor and Chair of Microbiology at UChicago.

“As the holder of the endowed Betty and Bernard Roizman Chair, I am deeply honored to carry forward his legacy of excellence and intellectual courage. He will be deeply missed by all who had the honor of knowing him.”

‘My second love at first sight’

Roizman was born in Romania in 1929. His early life was shaped by the upheaval of World War II, including years of displacement, deprivation, and survival as a refugee as his family fled advancing armies across Eastern Europe. This eventually brought his family to the United States in 1947, where they settled in Philadelphia and he enrolled at Temple University.

Science was not his first calling, however. “The truth is that as I was growing up I wanted to be a writer,” he wrote in a 2015 autobiographical essay. “My aspirations came to an end when, in order to speed up my graduation from college, I took courses in microbiology. It was my second love at first sight—that of my wife preceded it.”

Roizman married Betty in 1950 and remained deeply devoted to her throughout their 70-year marriage. He took care to ensure that others recognized her warmth and gift for conversation, often directing attention toward her rather than himself.

He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple before attending the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where he received his Doctor of Science in 1956. After serving on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, he joined the University of Chicago in 1965 and spent the next 52 years there, where he was dedicated to scientific discovery and mentoring the next generation of scientists.

The birth of molecular epidemiology

In the late 1950s, Roizman pioneered methods for purifying herpes simplex virus DNA and describing its unique structure.

Among his most consequential discoveries was that HSV gene sequences vary among unrelated individuals, but are identical among related individuals infected with the virus. These “genetic fingerprints” enabled the tracing of viral transmission from person to person, giving rise to a field that would be known as molecular epidemiology.

Using this approach, Roizman demonstrated that nurses in hospital maternity wards were inadvertently transmitting HSV between infants by failing to wash their hands between patients. His findings led directly to changes in hospital practices and a dramatic reduction in neonatal HSV infections.

Roizman later used early DNA editing techniques to manipulate the HSV genome, identifying the functions of many of its 84 genes, particularly those essential for viral replication. Among these was an enzyme that became a key target for antiviral drug development.

He also discovered ways to harness HSV’s biology for therapeutic purposes. He engineered forms of the virus that lack its ability to damage the central nervous system, but retain the capacity to selectively infect and destroy cancer cells. He further demonstrated that modified HSV could serve as a vector for delivering and expressing foreign genes, advancing the development of gene therapy.

A legacy of teaching

Roizman prioritized mentorship, and his influence extended far beyond the laboratory. Over his career, he trained generations of scientists who went on to establish research programs across the United States, Europe, and Asia, extending his impact throughout the global scientific community.

Beginning with his 60th birthday and continuing every five years thereafter, his former students and postdoctoral fellows returned to UChicago for scientific symposia to celebrate his continuing contributions to science, a testament to the lasting impact he had on their lives and careers.

Those who trained with Roizman frequently recalled acts of generosity that extended well beyond science—support offered quietly and without expectation of acknowledgment.

He often said that the true measure of his work was the young scientists he mentored and shaped. “What lasts are not the scientific reports, but rather the generations of scientists whose education I may have influenced,” he wrote.

In his later years, he took particular pleasure in visits from former trainees and colleagues, and in the conversations about science that continued long after his formal career had ended. He retired from the University of Chicago in 2017 but remained active in teaching and mentoring students in virology.

In 2021, the Roizmans endowed the Bernard and Betty Roizman Professorship at the University of Chicago, an enduring commitment to future generations of scientists in the field he helped define. Khader is the first faculty member to hold the distinction.

Roizman was elected to numerous prestigious scientific organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (Medicine) and an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

While Roizman’s contributions to science were extensive and profound, they reflect only part of his legacy, family members said: Those who knew him experienced a man of unwavering integrity, humility, and quiet generosity—deeply attentive to others and committed to elevating the people around him.

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

How do AI ‘judges’ compare to human ones? It's complicated, says a UChicago scholar

Mark Cohen — 04/23/2026 - 01:55pm

As AI rapidly works its way into the legal system, Prof. Eric Posner is asking a pointed question: What happens when machines fill the role of a judge?

That question drives much of Posner’s research as the Kirkland & Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Arthur and Esther Kane Research Chair at the University of Chicago Law School. He was elected by his faculty peers to share his findings in the Nora and Edward Ryerson Lecture, a prestigious annual address at the University.

Speaking on April 16 in a packed Friedman Hall at the Rubenstein Forum, Posner offered a probing examination of how large language models are already influencing legal decision-making—and why, despite their growing sophistication, they are unlikely to replace human judges anytime soon.

Introduced by University President Paul Alivisatos—who described the Ryerson Lecture as “the ultimate celebration” of UChicago scholarship—Posner began with a note of cautious realism.

While U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts recently predicted that “human judges will be around for a while,” Posner pointed to growing evidence that AI is gaining a foothold in judicial workflow. Surveys suggest a majority of federal judges report using AI tools in some capacity, and some have openly acknowledged experimenting with them.

In one example, a federal appellate judge consulted an AI model to help interpret whether installing an in-ground trampoline qualified as “landscaping” under an insurance policy.

“I just want people to know that I did this,” the judge wrote, describing the AI’s answer as helpful, even though the issue ultimately did not determine the outcome of the case.

Beyond isolated uses, Posner highlighted the emergence of AI-driven arbitration platforms, including one developed by the American Arbitration Association. These systems promise faster and dramatically cheaper dispute resolution, raising the prospect that AI could first gain traction not in courts, but instead in private adjudication.

At the same time, Posner emphasized that AI is already influencing litigation in less welcome ways. Courts are increasingly receiving filings with AI-generated text containing fabricated legal citations, often referred to as “hallucinations,” prompting sanctions and ethical concerns.

Against this backdrop, Posner turned to the core of his lecture: a series of experiments testing how AI “judges” compare to human ones.

How AI handles legal questions

Drawing on prior scholarship in legal realism, Posner and his collaborators examined whether decision-makers follow legal rules strictly—a “formalist” approach—or are influenced by broader considerations such as fairness or sympathy in a “realist” approach.

In one study, human judges evaluated a war crimes case involving sympathetic and unsympathetic defendants. The result was that judges were influenced, at the margins, by the attributes of the defendant.

But AI models behaved differently.

“The AI was a formalist,” Posner explained. “It simply followed the law. It disregarded the degree of sympathy that one might have felt.”

The pattern held across additional experiments. In a complex “choice of law” scenario, where courts must determine which jurisdiction’s law applies, human judges produced inconsistent outcomes and occasionally made factual or legal errors. By contrast, AI models applied the governing rules with complete consistency and without mistake.

Yet that apparent strength, Posner suggested, may also be a weakness. Studies have shown that law students, like AI, tend to apply the law in a rigid formalistic fashion.

“Would you want law students to be judges?” he asked.

For Posner, the comparison underscores a deeper truth about the legal system—human judging is not, and has never been, purely mechanical. From the legal realist critique of the early 20th century to contemporary debates over originalism, scholars have long recognized that judicial decisions are shaped not only by rules, but by judgment, experience and social context.

AI, by contrast, is trained on the “official story” of law—the formal reasoning found in judicial opinions—without access to the underlying motivations or institutional dynamics that shape real-world decisions.

Limits of AI in judging

Posner identified three main obstacles to replacing human judges with AI.

First, AI systems cannot reliably explain their own reasoning. While they produce plausible legal arguments, “it’s not clear that the reasons are the motivations for their actual decisions,” he said.

Second, judging is embedded in a complex institutional structure. Courts operate within hierarchies, interact across jurisdictions and respond directly or indirectly to political and social pressures.

“Human judges are part of this enormously complex institutional structure,” Posner said, one that would be difficult to replicate artificially.

Finally, he pointed to what he called the “paradox of the official story,” the gap between how judicial decisions are publicly justified and how they are actually made.

AI systems, trained on formal legal texts, may faithfully reproduce the rhetoric of judging without capturing its reality.

Even so, Posner acknowledged reasons for optimism about AI’s role in the legal system.

AI platforms are remarkably effective at identifying patterns across recurring fact scenarios, a core feature of legal reasoning. They also produce polished, coherent opinions that can be difficult to distinguish from those written by humans.

Despite these advantages, Posner remains skeptical that AI will displace judges. More likely is a quieter transformation—judges will increasingly rely on AI tools behind the scenes, even if they do not always publicly acknowledge it.

Posner finds the prospect of continued human involvement in judicial decision-making both essential and reassuring, especially in the event of a close call that could go either way.

“I want a human to flip the coin so we can argue about it,” he said. “I don’t want an LLM to do that.”

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

Three UChicago scholars elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

04/22/2026 - 11:30am

Three members of the University of Chicago faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. They are Profs. William Baude, Elisabeth Clemens and Alison LaCroix.

These scholars have made breakthroughs in sociology and law, studying issues spanning the rise of interest group politics to constitutional law and the rise of American federalism. They join the 2026 class, announced April 22, which includes more than 250 artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors.

The academy, founded in 1780, is an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members as well as an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines to address significant challenges.

William Baude, SB’04, is the Harry Kalven Jr. Professor of Law and faculty director of the Constitutional Law Institute.

Baude teaches a range of subjects such as federal courts, constitutional law, election law, conflict of laws and elements of the law. His current research interests include judicial remedies available against the federal government, the Supreme Court's emergency docket and the legacy of William Winslow Crosskey.

The co-editor of two textbooks, The Constitution of the United States and Hart & Wechsler's Federal Courts in the Federal System, Baude is also a podcaster and blogger at Divided Argument.

Elisabeth Clemens, AM'85, PhD'90, is a professor of sociology and a former master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division.

Her research explores the role of social movements and organizational innovation in political change. Clemens' first book, The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925, received best book awards in both organizational sociology and political sociology.

She is also co-editor of Private Action and the Public Good, Remaking Modernity: Politics, History and Sociology, Politics and Partnerships: Voluntary Associations in America's Past and Present, and the journal Studies in American Political Development. She is now completing Civic Nation, which traces the tense but powerful entanglements of benevolence and liberalism in the development of the American nation-state.

Clemens has served terms as chair of both the political sociology and comparative historical sociology sections of the American Sociological Association, as a member of the Social Science Research Council Program on Philanthropy and the Third Sector, and as president of the Social Science History Association for 2012-13.

Alison LaCroix is the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law and an associate member of the Department of History.

LaCroix is a scholar of U.S. legal history specializing in constitutional law, federalism, and 18th- and 19th-century legal thought.

LaCroix’s second book is the prize-winning The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms. Supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the book examines the transformation of U.S. constitutional law between the nation's founding and the Civil War. She is also the author of the prior The Ideological Origins of American Federalism.

In 2021, former President Joe Biden appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. She is also slated to deliver the address for this year’s UChicago Convocation ceremony on June 6.