UChicago News

University to bestow five honorary degrees at Convocation

Tue, 29 May 2018 14:48 -0500

The University of Chicago will present honorary degrees to five distinguished scholars during the 531st Convocation on June 9.

The honorary degree recipients are Fabiola Gianotti, the director-general of CERN; Charles M. Lieber, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor at Harvard University; Michael C.A. Macdonald, research associate in the faculty of Oriental Studies and the Khalili Research Centre at the University of Oxford; Robert E. Ricklefs, the Curator’s Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; and William S-Y. Wang, chair professor of Language and Cognitive Sciences at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Fabiola Gianotti, an experimental particle physicist who led the search and characterization of the Higgs boson, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Gianotti led the 3,000-member ATLAS collaboration since its inception at CERN Laboratory to search for the Higgs boson, one of the most sought-after objects in scientific history. Her early career was devoted to the search for supersymmetric particles, which could provide stability to nature’s two very different fundamental energy scales—gravity and weak interaction.

Gianotti is a member of the Italian Academy of Sciences, a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy. She is the author or co-author of more than 500 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Her scientific and societal contributions have been recognized by prestigious honors, including the Special Fundamental Physics Prize of the Milner Foundation, the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society, the Medal of Honor of the Niels Bohr Institute of Copenhagen, and the honor of “Cavaliere di Gran Croce dell’ordine al merito della Repubblica” by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

Charles M. Lieber, a groundbreaking scholar of nanoscience and nanomaterials, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Lieber has defined directions and demonstrated applications of nanomaterials in areas like electronics, computing and photonics, and has pioneered the interface of nanoelectronics with biology and medicine, including his current focus on brain science. He has originated new paradigms that have defined the rational growth, characterization and original applications of functional nanometer diameter wires and heterostructures, and provided seminal concepts central to the bottom-up paradigm of nanoscience.

Lieber’s work has been recognized by a number of awards, including two National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Awards, the MRS Von Hippel Award, the Willard Gibbs Medal and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He is also a fellow of the Materials Research Society and American Chemical Society, and honorary fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society. In addition, Lieber is co-editor of the journal Nano Letters, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of a number of other journals. He has published over 395 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and is the principal inventor on more than 40 patents.

Michael C.A. Macdonald, a leading expert in early language and civilization in the Arabian Peninsula, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Macdonald has improved knowledge of the languages, religions, cultures and history of ancient Arabia and neighboring areas, including the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, through his scholarship on the vast number of inscriptions on the Arabian peninsula that predate the language of the Quran. Macdonald created the Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia, a database that collects more than 70,000 inscriptions, many of which were unearthed, edited and translated by Macdonald himself. He was instrumental in establishing the field of Ancient North Arabian studies as an academic field in its own right, and has been its foremost scholar for the past three decades. He has fundamentally enabled the work of scholars of Ancient North Arabia, and has contributed research and writing that has shaped and guided this field.

In addition to his many articles, Macdonald also wrote the book Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia (2009). Macdonald was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy in 2016.

Robert E. Ricklefs, a leading figure in evolutionary ecology, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Ricklefs has contributed fundamental research linking disease dynamics to macro-ecology, linking life-history evolution with macro-evolutionary patterns, and searching for commonalities in patterns of ecological communities across types of organisms and geographic areas. His research focused on history’s role in determining population densities and distributions on islands, at a time when other leading ecological researchers were emphasizing the importance of species interactions at local scales for shaping species distributions. Because of this, his work represents the modern foundation for the recent synthesis of local conditions and historical processes in shaping the composition of communities of organisms.

Ricklefs is the recipient of the 2015 Ramon Margalef Prize from the government of Catalonia, the 2011 Alfred Russel Wallace award from the International Biogeography Society and the 1999 President’s Award from the American Society of Naturalists, among other honors. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

William S-Y. Wang, a pioneer in the study of language evolution and the emergence of new languages, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Wang is an internationally renowned linguist whose scholarship and academic impact have spanned two continents across the Pacific Ocean. He has performed multidisciplinary research on the biological and evolutionary basis of language, as well as computational linguistics with a focus on the production and processing of language, the brain and computer interface, machine translation, and speech synthesis and recognition. He was one of the first to apply a combination of linguistics and acoustics to the problem of machine recognition of speech.

Wang is the founder and lead editor of the Journal of Chinese Linguistics, which is the top publication in this field. He has had full professorial careers at the University of California, Berkeley; at the City University of Hong Kong; and at National Taiwan Normal University. His wide-ranging scholarship has been written in or translated into Chinese, English, French, German, Italian and Japanese.

Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, to receive Benton Medal

Thu, 24 May 2018 16:50 -0500

The University will award the Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service to Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post. Baron will receive his honor at the University of Chicago’s 531st Convocation on June 9.

Baron is regarded as an influential leader in the field of investigative journalism, whose work reflects dedication to fact-based reporting around difficult or controversial issues, the responsibility to inform the public and the protection of freedom of the press. He is the 15th recipient of the Benton Medal, which recognizes people who have rendered distinguished public service in the field of education, including anyone who has contributed in a systematic and distinguished way to shaping minds and disseminating knowledge.

Baron oversees more than 800 journalists at The Washington Post. News organizations under his leadership have won 14 Pulitzer Prizes, including seven at The Post, six at The Boston Globe and one at The Miami Herald. In Boston, he launched an investigation of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of clergy sexual abuse that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service and was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight. He also held top posts at The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

Baron is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was awarded the 2016 Hitchens Prize from the Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation, which is bestowed upon a journalist or author whose work “reflects a commitment to free expression, a depth of intellect and an unswerving pursuit of the truth, without regard to personal or professional consequence.”

Nominations for the Benton Medal are submitted by members of the faculty, evaluated by the Committee on Awards and Prizes and voted upon by the Council of the University Senate.

The University President extends an invitation to Benton nominees to receive their medals during Convocation. The nominees also are invited to give a public lecture or workshop the following academic year.

Chicago Booth’s Douglas Diamond wins Onassis Prize in Finance

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 09:30 -0500

Prof. Douglas W. Diamond, one of the world's leading authorities on bank runs and liquidity crises who is considered the father of modern banking theory, has been awarded the 2018 Onassis Prize in Finance.

Awarded every three years, the Onassis Prize recognizes the world’s foremost academics in the fields of finance, international trade and shipping, to honor outstanding academic achievements that have had international significance. Nobel laureate and Chicago Booth scholar Eugene Fama won the inaugural prize in finance in 2009.

“I am delighted to receive the Onassis Prize,” said Diamond, the Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “After the recent financial crisis, policymakers and scholars have a renewed focus on the stability of financial institutions.”

Diamond changed the way people view banks through his pioneering research, which laid the groundwork for how central bankers, regulators, policymakers and academics approach modern finance. His research agenda for the past 30 years has been to explain what banks do, why they do it and the consequences of these arrangements.

Named after Aristotle Onassis who excelled in these three disciplines, each Onassis Prize is worth $200,000; they are sponsored by the Onassis Foundation and awarded jointly by Cass Business School London with the Onassis Foundation.

—This story first appeared on the Chicago Booth website.

Two UChicago faculty members win Sloan research fellowships

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 12:35 -0600

University of Chicago chemist Timothy Berkelbach and neurobiologist Mark Sheffield have been awarded Sloan research fellowships.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation gives the awards annually to early-career scholars identified as the promising scientific researchers working today in the United States and Canada. This year's 126 winners will receive $65,000, which may be spent over a two-year term on any expense supportive of their research.

Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists, and fellows are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s independent research accomplishments, creativity and potential.

Tim Berkelbach, a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor, is a theoretical chemist who studies the electronic and optical properties of nanoscale materials. His group adapts computational models written for tens of atoms and scales them up to work for sets of hundreds or thousands—which you need to model materials for applications in solar energy, catalysis and manufacturing, chemical sensing and electronics.

“It’s an honor to be selected, especially alongside such an amazing lineup of people who have been recognized as Sloan fellows over the years,” Berkelbach said.

He joined the University in 2016.

Asst. Prof. Mark Sheffield studies memory—how memories are formed, retrieved and altered over time. Recent advances now let scientists identify, monitor and manipulate the neurons involved in a specific memory; his lab uses imaging and optogenetics to track how individual and groups of neurons in the hippocampus (the center of emotion and memory) interact.

“We know quite a lot about memory at a psychological level, but our understanding of the neurobiology that underlies memory function lags far behind,” Sheffield said. “We’re very excited, with the help of the Sloan fellowship, to move forward with these experiments, which we hope will provide insight for the development of treatments for memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s and PTSD.”

He joined the University in 2017.

Prof. Richard Thaler delivers Nobel Prize lecture

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:37 -0600

Until Prof. Richard H. Thaler came along, economists resisted the idea of basing their models on how real people behave. The reality is people don’t always know what they want, much less what’s best for them.

In October, Thaler was honored with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his pioneering scholarship in the field of behavioral economics. On Dec. 8, the Chicago Booth scholar delivered his Nobel lecture in Stockholm as part of a weeklong celebration of the 2017 Nobel laureates. He will receive his Nobel Medal on Dec. 10 at a white-tie-and-tails affair at the Stockholm Concert Hall. (Live webcast begins at 7:30 a.m. CST here).

In his Nobel speech, entitled “From Cashews to Nudges: The Evolution of Behavioral Economics,” Thaler told stories of various field experiments in his everyday life—ranging from a dinner party as a graduate student in Rochester, N.Y. in the 1970s to the Swedish government’s present-day effort to get its citizens to sign up for retirement plans.

Prof. Richard Thaler delivers the 2017 Nobel Prize Lecture in Economic Sciences on Dec. 8. (Photo by Henrik Montgomery / TT)

“One lesson from these stories is that there are a bunch of things economic theory says we can leave out, and in fact, makes the strong prediction that they simply will not matter,” Thaler said in his Nobel address. “I call these ‘supposedly irrelevant factors.’ And really my research can be summarized as there are a lot of these supposedly irrelevant factors that are not irrelevant. They matter.”

Thaler launched his journey as one of the founders of behavioral economics with a bowl of cashews at a dinner party. He was concerned his guests were eating too many and that it would spoil their appetites, so he took them away. His guests, all economists, were happy when he removed the nuts, and that led to a discussion: How could they be happy, given that a first principle of economics is more choices are better than fewer choices?

“If we learn from other social scientists, we can improve economics and increase its explanatory power, and it can give us new tools we can use to improve people’s outcome. In short, we can nudge them.”Prof. Richard H. Thaler

Fourth-year student named Rhodes scholar

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 11:55 -0600

Lucas Tse, a fourth-year student in the College, has earned a Rhodes Scholarship for Hong Kong to study at the University of Oxford next fall. He hopes to pursue an MPhil in economic and social history, with aspirations for a career as a scholar and educator.

“There are ideals in both directions that attract me,” Tse wrote in an email from Hong Kong, where he has lived for 19 years and where he was visiting family. “I would like to further my academic training and take on the challenges of scholarship, and at the same time do work outside the university, especially in Hong Kong and in mainland China. Education asks that we build something together that can connect with real human beings.”

Since 1986, one Rhodes Scholar for Hong Kong is selected annually on the basis of intellect, character, leadership and commitment to service, to join the other Rhodes scholars around the world. Tse is the 52nd person affiliated with the University of Chicago to earn a Rhodes scholarship.

“We are tremendously proud of Lucas, as Rhodes Scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate the highest levels of academic excellence, character and ambition,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “The University of Chicago has a long history of fostering rigorous inquiry. We are delighted that Lucas’s pursuit of knowledge will continue to grow in preparation for a career as a scholar and educator.”

Tse has focused on philosophy and philology through the interdisciplinary Fundamentals major. That has afforded him close contact with UChicago scholars, whom he credits for guiding him “through philosophical and religious texts across traditions and helping me work toward an understanding of the core problems.” His Fundamentals paper is a philosophical reading of the Analects of Confucius, in which he examines moral transformation.

While at UChicago Tse has continued an interest in music. He studies voice privately and works with fellow student pianists to give recitals including works such as Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Fauré’s Cinq mélodies “de Venise” and Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. He also is a member of Chicago Chorale, the Rockefeller Chapel Choir and the Early Music Ensemble.

“Music is another way for people to communicate,” Tse said. “It is difficult and fulfilling to truly share an experience.”

Tse also teaches philosophy to youths aged 8 to 16 as part of the Civic Knowledge Project, a program that connects UChicago with South Side communities.

“The University has been an intellectual community for me,” Tse said. “I am often busy organizing and participating in reading groups. I have learned a lot by coming together with people from different academic backgrounds.”

Tse secured application support through the College Center for Scholarly Advancement, which guides undergraduates and College alumni through rigorous application processes for nationally competitive fellowships. Additional support is provided by the British Awards faculty nomination committee; their ongoing service is a critical part of students’ success at the national level.

Japanese government honors Prof. Raaj Sah for analysis of economic and financial policies

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:35 -0600

Prof. Raaj Sah has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon from the government of Japan.

Conferred on behalf of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, the award honors Sah’s contributions to the analysis of Japan’s economic and financial policies. Among the government policies that Sah, a professor of public policy and economics at the Harris School of Public Policy, has engaged with are tax reform, public revenues, deficits and redistribution—some of the central issues for contemporary Japan.

“Professor Sah combines his researcher’s incisiveness and his vast knowledge with his practical wisdom. He works seamlessly across cultures and societies, deeply respecting the differences and, at the same time, transcending them. He is admirably original in all domains of his work,” said Prof. Dan Black, deputy dean of Harris Public Policy.

“His ideas have impacted many societies, and not just Japan and India,” said Prof. Errol D’Souza, the director-in-charge of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Sah is a distinguished fellow at the institute.

Sah has previously held faculty positions in business, economics and public policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Among the honorary positions he has held is at the Ministry of Finance Japan.

Sah holds a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

Marshall Chin elected to National Academy of Medicine

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 14:41 -0500

University of Chicago Medicine physician Marshall Chin has been elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Chin was one of 80 new members elected to the Academy, it was announced Oct. 16. Election to the Academy is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. It indicates that an individual has made major contributions to medicine and health care and demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Chin, the Richard Parrillo Family Professor of Healthcare Ethics and associate chief and director of research for the Section of General Internal Medicine, is a general internist with extensive experience caring for both the clinical and social needs of vulnerable patients with chronic disease.

“Marshall Chin is an international leader in improving care and outcomes for racial and ethnic minority patients and persons with social risk factors,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, dean of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine and executive vice president of medical affairs.

“He has devised and implemented a series of innovative approaches to patient care with particular emphasis on the alleviation of difficult clinical, social and economic problems,” Polonsky added. “He is also a talented physician, with a lifelong commitment to improve patient care, reduce health care disparities and make the best use of available resources.”

Chin directs the NIH-funded Chicago Center for Diabetes Translation Research. He and Assoc. Prof. Monica Peek co-direct the South Side Diabetes Project, which has advanced diabetes care and outcomes through healthcare system and community interventions.

Chin also leads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Finding Answers: Solving Disparities through Payment and Delivery System Reform. Through that program, he and his team created the Roadmap to Reduce Disparities, a six-step framework to help health care organizations improve minority health and foster equity.

Chin studies the patient-centered medical home—a team-based care-delivery model—in safety net clinics, and efforts to improve shared decision-making between clinicians and LGBTQ persons of color. His research has improved care in federally qualified health centers through the national Health Disparities Collaboratives.

Chin co-chairs the National Quality Forum’s Disparities Standing Committee, which works to reduce health care disparities and reform clinical performance measurement and payment. He currently serves on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Preventive Services Task Force and is a former president of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

In addition to his clinical and research roles, Chin is a teacher and award-winning mentor, committed to providing opportunities for trainees and young faculty. He is also associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. He joined the UChicago faculty in 1994.

With Chin’s appointment, there are now 15 current or emeritus UChicago faculty members who have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as the Institute of Medicine.

Richard Thaler wins Nobel Prize 'for his contributions to behavioural economics'

Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:06 -0500

University of Chicago Prof. Richard H. Thaler has been awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Thaler, the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, “for his contributions to behavioural economics,” a relatively new field that bridges the gap between economics and psychology. Thaler’s research investigates the implications of relaxing the standard economic assumption that everyone in the economy is rational and selfish, instead entertaining the possibility that some of the agents in the economy are sometimes human.

“Richard’s original, broadly influential and paradigm-defining work has richly earned this recognition,” President Robert J. Zimmer wrote in a message to the UChicago community. “We look forward to celebrating Richard’s work and his place in the distinguished legacy of eminent economics research at the University of Chicago.”

He is among the 90 scholars associated with the University to receive Nobel Prizes, and among the 29 who have received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In addition to Thaler, five current UChicago faculty members are Nobel laureates in economics: Profs. Eugene Fama and Lars Hansen (who won in 2013), Roger Myerson (2007), James Heckman (2000) and Robert E. Lucas Jr. (1995).

Thaler learned of the award after his cell phone rang at 4 a.m. The phone number was from Sweden, so “I had a pretty good idea what that might be,” he said Monday. The award was particularly meaningful because behavioral economics was “really out in the wilderness 40 years ago,” when Thaler began his research.

“It’s been a long journey,” he said, “so I’m happy about that.”

‘Knowledge with enduring impact’

At a news conference Monday morning in the Charles M. Harper Center, Chicago Booth Dean Madhav Rajan said Thaler “represents the quintessence of Chicago Booth’s mission: to produce knowledge with enduring impact, and to influence and educate current and future leaders.” Rajan also credited Thaler with helping to build Chicago Booth’s faculty in behavioral science, “vastly expanding the school’s footprint and stature in this field.”

Thaler, who took the stage to cheering from the excited students and faculty who had lined the staircases of the Winter Garden, described the experience being a Booth faculty member as one of “tough love. The behavioral science group, it’s a little less tough, but only a little.”

He admitted he hadn’t persuaded all of his colleagues and fellow economists of the importance of behavioral economics, so instead, “I’ve used the strategy of corrupting the youth, whose minds aren’t already made up,” he said. “Many great, young economists have embraced behavioral economics…The growth of the field is really due to the work of the people that followed me.”

Spotting fellow Nobel laureate Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, in the front row, Thaler added, “It’s been good to be here all these 20 years, arguing with guys like Fama. It’s good for me.” These days, however, “[we] try to keep our arguments to the golf course.”

Prof. Richard Thaler talks to Cass Sunstein, his former UChicago scholar and his Nudge coauthor, via Skype from his living room after winning the Nobel Prize. (Photo by Anne Ryan)

‘The father of behavioral economics’

Thaler, who has been dubbed the “father of behavioral economics,” wrote the bestselling books Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015) and Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (2008). He is renowned for creating easy-to-understand scenarios that show how human behavior often contradicts traditional economic logic.

Many economic models, Thaler told National Public Radio last year, assume people are rational, unemotional, and self-controlled. “I believe that for the last 50 or 60 years, economists have devoted themselves to studying fictional creatures,” he said. “They might as well be studying unicorns.” Every day, his research reveals, we behave in ways that violate economic principles.

In keeping with his research into these human idiosyncrasies, Thaler joked in a Nobel news conference Monday morning that he planned to spend the 9 million Swedish krona (about $1.1 million USD) he will receive with the prize “as irrationally as possible.”

In Misbehaving, which Financial Times named one of the six most influential business books of 2015, Thaler chronicles the struggle to bring the academic discipline of economics back down to earth and reveals how behavioral economic analysis can change the way we think about everything from household finances to the NFL draft.

For instance, Thaler’s research has challenged the classical economic notion that money is fungible—that is, that one dollar is the same as any other dollar. But Thaler’s work on mental accounting, one of the areas of research highlighted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in its Nobel citation, has shown that, in practice, people don’t treat money this way. Instead, they mentally earmark money for specific purposes, such as housing, food, and travel, and make financial decisions based on how those decisions will affect each small fund. “Money in one mental account is not a perfect substitute for money in another account,” Thaler wrote in a 1999 paper.

Thaler illustrated the point with his own Nobel win. Most economists, he said at the news conference, would challenge the premise of a question like, “What do you plan to do with your prize money?” Because they view money as “fungible,” they wouldn’t—in theory—distinguish prize money from any other money.

Not Thaler. “I believe in something called mental accounting, which is precisely people putting labels on money,” he explained. “Anytime I spend any money [on something] that’s really fun, I’m going to say that came from the Nobel Prize.”

‘Make it easy’

Nudge, coauthored with Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein, explores how the concepts of behavioral economics can be used to tackle many of society’s major problems and influence public policy. Ranked as the Best Book of the Year by The Economist and Financial Times, the research prompted the United Kingdom’s government in 2010 to establish a Behavioral Insight Team, or “Nudge Unit,” to create policies that nudge British citizens to make better choices and, in turn, save the state money. Thaler served as an advisor in setting up the unit’s guiding principles.

At the heart of Nudge is what Thaler calls his “mantra”: “If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles,” he explained. “Nudges” push people toward better choices by making those choices easy. For example, employers can “nudge” employees by automatically enrolling them in a retirement savings plan, rather than requiring them to opt in; schools can “nudge” kids toward healthy food choices by putting fruit at eye level.

“If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles.” Prof. Richard Thaler on the mantra behind 'Nudge'

Thaler’s other books include Quasi-Rational Economics and The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life. His work has been published in the American Economics Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Political Economy.

Thaler was named in 2015 to Bloomberg Markets 50 Most Influential People; he also was the American Economic Association’s president for 2015. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.

Before joining the Chicago Booth faculty in 1995, Thaler taught at the University of Rochester and Cornell University. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Originally from New Jersey, Thaler attended Case Western Reserve University where he received a bachelor's degree in 1967. Soon after, he attended the University of Rochester where he received a master's degree in 1970 and a PhD in 1974.

University to bestow three honorary degrees at Convocation

Thu, 25 May 2017 15:40 -0500

The University of Chicago will present honorary degrees to three distinguished scholars during Convocation on June 10.

The honorary degree recipients are Robert MacPherson, the Herman Weyl Professor of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study; Shaul Mukamel, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine; and Craig B. Thompson, president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and professor at the Weill Cornell Medicine Graduate School of Medical Sciences.

Robert MacPherson, a mathematician whose prolific work has impacted many different areas in his field, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of science.

His early work was devoted to singularities. In his first work in topology, MacPherson defined Chern classes for singular varieties. After that he contributed to the Riemann-Roch formula for singular varieties, the definition of intersection homology, and the idea of a perversity. This work had large implications for mathematics, including algebraic geometry and representation theory.

MacPherson also developed the idea of deformation to the normal cone, and worked on its application to intersection theory. He made numerous other contributions throughout the field of mathematics, including the development of stratified Morse theory, and his work has had a great impact in pure topology. Also, as one of the leading pure mathematicians, he is working to break down barriers between pure and applied mathematics.

The University’s honorary degree is based on his later, less recognized work pertaining to locally symmetric spaces and the trace formula leading to the Fundamental lemma, stratified Morse theory and its many applications, combinatorics, and, most recently, applied topology.

MacPherson was recognized with the National Academy of Sciences Award for Mathematics and the AMS Steele Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Shaul Mukamel, a theoretician whose groundbreaking work has changed and advanced the field of spectroscopy, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of science.

Mukamel has played a seminal role in research on molecule-light interactions and their consequences, with contributions to understanding complex electron and nuclear dynamics in molecules. His research has a great impact on the field of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, with applications in physics, chemistry and biology.

His work has additionally created new subfields of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, and provided ways to interpret essentially all experimental research in this field. Over a 40-year career, he has led the introduction of new concepts that illuminate the complexities associated with molecular electronic processes.

His research provided, for the first time, a framework and predictive theory that allowed for the unified description of many nonlinear experiments. His theory was also the first step in developing multidimensional optical and infrared spectroscopy, which revolutionized the way in which molecular spectroscopy has been performed in the 21st century.

Mukamel has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. He has received the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics, the Zewail Award of the American Society, the Meggers Award of the Optical Society of America and the University of Chicago’s Mullikan Prize Medal.

Craig B. Thompson, a leader in the field of cancer metabolism, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of science.

Thompson’s discoveries relating to the mechanism of cell metabolism have led to advances in the understanding of tumor growth and metabolic pathways. He served as director of the Gwen Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research at the University of Chicago from 1993-99. Since then, he has focused on human cell epigenetics and, most recently, the identification of mutations that can be targeted in drug development.

In 2003, Thompson began studying the role of protein kinase B in cell growth and transformation. His research resulted in a detailed understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of metabolic reprogramming in cancer cells.

This groundbreaking work revealed that the major function of most cancer genes is to control cellular metabolism, and has led to new therapeutic approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. His most recent work has investigated oncogenic mutations in metabolic enzymes.

Thompson has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences and is a recipient of the American College of Physicians Award for Medical Science. He has published, or has in press, more than 250 original articles, with over 60,000 citations for his work since 1999.

Musician and educator Steve Coleman to receive Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal

Mon, 22 May 2017 16:15 -0500

The University of Chicago will award the 2017 Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal to Steve Coleman, a composer, saxophonist, educator and native of the city’s South Side.

Coleman, who will receive the award at Convocation on June 10, is an artist known for his original, challenging compositions that draw inspiration not only from musical traditions around the globe, but from nature and scientific concepts. He has spent several decades conducting lengthy interviews with older jazz musicians in order to develop a deeper understanding of race relations and musical history and forms, among other topics.

Coleman is a leader in education and community building, providing instruction and opportunities for musicians to participate in workshops and collaborations across the country. He is founder of the M-Base Concepts, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to using music as a tool to aid in the expansion of consciousness.

Over the last two years, Coleman and M-Base Concepts, Inc. have partnered with UChicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and Arts + Public Life, along with the Rebuild Foundation, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and the Jazz Institute of Chicago to develop multi-week residencies focused on the importance of musical mentorship. His ensemble, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, focused on workshops, outreach on Chicago’s South Side and performances—the majority of which were free. They also led workshops with young musicians in the Chicago Public Schools and partnered with Free Write Arts and Literacy to visit a juvenile detention center, where the band talked about their lives and gave youth the opportunity to play various instruments.

Coleman has received a Doris Duke Impact Award and a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Coleman is the 53rd recipient of the Rosenberger Medal, established in 1917 by Mr. and Mrs. Jesse L. Rosenberger in recognition of achievement through research, in authorship, in invention, for discovery, for unusual public service or for anything “deemed of great benefit to humanity.”

Members of the UChicago faculty nominate candidates for the Rosenberger Medal. The faculty Committee on Awards and Prizes then evaluates the nominations, which are voted upon by the Council of the University Senate.

Rosenberger Medalists are invited to give a public lecture or workshop during the following academic year.

Prof. David Nirenberg awarded Laing Prize from UChicago Press

Thu, 11 May 2017 10:10 -0500

The University of Chicago Press has awarded the Gordon J. Laing Prize to Prof. David Nirenberg for Neighboring Faiths, his examination of the interactions of Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages that provides new insight into how the faiths relate today.

The Laing Prize is the Press’s top honor, awarded annually to the UChicago faculty author, editor or translator of a book published in the previous three years that brings the Press the greatest distinction. Nirenberg, dean of the Division of the Social Sciences and the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished Service Professor in History, Social Thought, Romance Languages and Literatures, is the 54th recipient of the award.

“Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today is the rare historical work that, in looking backward, can help point a way forward,” said Garrett Kiely, director of the UChicago Press. “Now, more than ever, we need scholars like David to remind us of our shared religious past and of our shared future. I am very pleased that the Board of University Publications conferred the Laing Prize on this outstanding work of scholarship.”

In his research, Nirenberg explores how the interactions of the three religions help shape how they define themselves and each other. He describes his work as getting closer to an understanding of what it meant for a Muslim in Christian Spain to convert to Judaism in the 14th century, or how Muslim and Christian readings of Hegel in the 20th century have shaped how members of these faiths perceive the other.

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2017 Laing Prize ceremony

In Neighboring Faiths, Nirenberg examines how the three religions interact by focusing on medieval Spain, but finding overlaps in more recent times from Pope Benedict XVI to the leaders of Hamas.

“How these three faiths interact with each other—and take shape through each other—is crucial to our current world and animates a huge amount of our geopolitical energy,” Nirenberg said. “Although the book is largely medieval, it begins with and ends with meditations on how this process of co-production among the three faiths is still going on.”

Writing in the London Review of Books, Carlos Fraenkel described Neighboring Faiths not as a “feel-good story” about the faiths getting along, but instead an argument for why ideas matter and how they can harden over time, requiring a study of the past to inform future relations.

What inspired Nirenberg to write Neighboring Faiths was a curiosity that emerged from his own background as a Latin American immigrant to the U.S. of Jewish descent. Further impetus came more recently when he taught an undergraduate course in Jerusalem.

“It was there, discussing the scriptures of Islam, Judaism and Christianity with a class evenly divided between all three faiths, that I first began to perceive the possibility, and perhaps even the importance, of such a project,” Nirenberg said.

Nirenberg is also author of Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages; Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition; and Aesthetic Theology and Its Enemies: Judaism in Christian Painting, Poetry and Politics. His honors include receiving the Historikerpreis der Stadt Münster this year, awarded for outstanding works in historical sciences.

Three faculty members elected to American Philosophical Society

Thu, 04 May 2017 15:19 -0500

Three UChicago faculty members have been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States.

They are Lorraine Daston, visiting professor in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought; Neil H. Shubin, the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy; and Michael S. Turner, the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor.

Also among the 32 newly elected members, announced May 1, are alumni Barbara Newman, AM’76, professor at Northwestern University; and Beth A. Simmons, AM’82, professor at the University of Pennsylvania; as well as former President Barack Obama, a former senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School; and architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, who designed the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and were selected to design the Obama Presidential Center.

Lorraine Daston is an American historian of science and an expert on early-modern European scientific and intellectual history who has written on the history of probability theory, objectivity and scientific observation. Her recent research has centered on the history of rules, including the rise of a rationality based in algorithms.

Daston is director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany, but spends a three-month period at UChicago, where she teaches seminars on topics at the intersection between the history of science, philosophy, and social theory.

She serves on the editorial board of the humanistic journal Critical Inquiry, in which a number of her scholarly articles have been published. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was inducted into the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2010.

Neil H. Shubin has conducted landmark research on the evolutionary origin of anatomical features of animals. He has conducted fieldwork in much of North America, including Greenland, as well as China, Africa and Antarctica. One of his most significant discoveries, a 375-million-year-old fossil called Tiktaalik roseae, is an important transitional form between fish and land animals.

Shubin has written two popular science books: the best-selling Your Inner Fish (2008), named best book of the year by the National Academy of Sciences and made into an Emmy Award-winning PBS series; and The Universe Within: The Deep History of the Human Body (2013).

He serves as associate dean for academic strategy in the Biological Sciences Division and a senior adviser to President Robert J. Zimmer. Shubin is also the co-interim director of the UChicago-affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory, where he’s played a key role in supporting education and research programs. Shubin is a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Michael S. Turner is a theoretical cosmologist who helped to pioneer the interdisciplinary field that combines particle astrophysics and cosmology. His research focuses on the earliest moments of creation, and he has made seminal contributions to theories surrounding dark matter, dark energy and inflation. A former chair of UChicago’s Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Turner currently serves as director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.

Turner chaired the National Research Council’s Committee on the Physics of the Universe, which published the influential report, “Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos.” He previously served as assistant director for mathematical and physical sciences at the National Science Foundation, the chief scientist of Argonne National Laboratory and the president of the American Physical Society.

Turner is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received numerous honors, including the 2010 Dannie Heineman Prize for pioneering cosmological physics research from the American Astronomical Society and the American Institute of Physics, and was selected by the University of Chicago to deliver the 2013 Ryerson Lecture.

Alexander Beilinson, Douglas Diamond elected to National Academy of Sciences

Wed, 03 May 2017 14:22 -0500

Two University of Chicago faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Alexander Beilinson, the David and Mary Winton Green University Professor of Mathematics; and Douglas W. Diamond, the Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance. They are among the 84 new members the academy announced May 2.

Beilinson is a mathematician who has done pioneering work in algebraic geometry, geometric representation theory and mathematical physics. His “Beilinson Conjectures” serve as a guiding influence in the field of arithmetic geometry, while Beilinson has made substantial contributions to geometric representation theory. Beilinson’s work with Vladimir Drinfeld, the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor at UChicago, is critical to geometric Langlands theory.

Beilinson’s honors include the Ostrowski Prize and Moscow Mathematical Society Prize and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A member of the UChicago faculty since 1998, Beilinson is one of eight University professors, selected for internationally recognized eminence in their field and potential for high impact across the University.

Considered the father of modern banking theory, Diamond changed the way people view banks. His pioneering research laid the groundwork for how central bankers, regulators, policymakers and academics approach modern finance. A UChicago faculty member since 1979, Diamond is known for his research into financial intermediaries, financial crises and liquidity. His research agenda for the past 30 years has been to explain what banks do, why they do it and the consequences of these arrangements.

His groundbreaking work on bank runs and financial crises earned him the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group-MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications in 2015. He received the Morgan Stanley-American Finance Association Award for Excellence in Finance in 2012. Diamond is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Finance Association.

Truman scholar seeks career advocating for criminal justice reform

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 15:50 -0500

Third-year Soreti Teshome has been awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, a nationally competitive award that supports exceptional students pursuing careers in public service.

Teshome was one of 62 students selected from a pool of 768 undergraduate candidates nationwide to win the prestigious award, which provides up to $30,000 toward graduate education. The news was announced April 12.

A double major in public policy and comparative race and ethnic studies, Teshome plans to pursue a law degree with a focus on public policy that will enable her to provide legal representation to those from marginalized communities.

“From arrest, to court processing, to sentencing, the justice system is primed to dole out the harshest outcomes to low-income minorities,” she said, citing a Sentencing Project statistic stating that 60 percent of the more than 2.2 million incarcerated individuals in the United States are people of color. “Legal advocacy is essential to challenging mass incarceration, but these efforts are limited by aspects of the justice system—such as plea bargaining and racially codified sentencing practices—that predispose people of color to incarceration. This is ultimately why my long-term interest is in policy reform.”

“Soreti’s selection as a Truman Scholar is evidence of her genuine commitment to public service, to the broader Chicago community and as an acknowledgement of her potential for success at the graduate level,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “She exemplifies the best our College students have to offer as scholars and citizens.”

In 2015 Teshome was the recipient of the Pozen New Leaders Scholarship, which enabled her to work with the Illinois Justice Project, advocating for stronger training requirements for Illinois attorneys practicing in juvenile court. That internship led to her joining the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission’s youth advisory board, for which she works to address the underutilization of juvenile record expungement in Illinois.

“Juvenile records are not as confidential as many people believe and can limit access to employment, housing and education,” Teshome said. “In Chicago, there are legal resources to help people navigate the expungement process. My work has involved trying to identify why these resources are underutilized and how they can become more accessible to the people who need them.”

Currently Teshome assists in the development and implementation of student programming and events at UChicago’s Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. She also serves on the OMSA student advisory council and as a mentor for the Institute of Politics’ Leaders of Color program. This summer the Pozen Human Rights Internship Program will fund her work as an investigative intern at the Brooklyn Defender Services in New York.

“Soreti is a uniquely passionate young person who already has a sound understanding of the impact that systems can have on individual lives,” said Era Laudermilk, deputy director of the Illinois Justice Project, who mentored Teshome during her internship. “She will no doubt use the scholarship to launch what will be an inevitably dynamic and successful career advocating for effective criminal justice reform.”

She was supported throughout her application process by the College Center for Scholarly Advancement, which supports undergraduates and College alumni through the highly competitive application processes for prestigious national scholarships and fellowships.

Two College students earn Goldwater Scholarships

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 13:37 -0500

Two third-years in the College have earned Barry Goldwater Scholarships, which honor undergraduates in the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering.

The Goldwater Foundation selected UChicago’s Pradnya Narkhede and Clare Singer along with 238 other students from a field of 1,286 applicants nationwide. The one- and two-year scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to $7,500 per year.

Narkhede is a chemistry and biochemistry major who plans to earn a doctorate in chemical biology and conduct research on characterizing and manipulating biochemical systems, with pharmaceutical and environmental implications. She also would like to teach at the university level.

“My goal is to lead a team of researchers in using chemistry to probe the mechanisms and dynamics of biological systems,” she said. “I also aim to become a professor and impart my passion for chemistry and biology to the next generation of budding scientists.”

Singer is a physics and mathematics major who plans to pursue a doctorate in geophysical and atmospheric sciences and conduct research on atmospheric climate dynamics with the goal of influencing international climate policy.

“I am looking to work in a scientific community that also has political connections,” Singer said. “I sense the urgency in my field and want to position myself such that my research can have the largest, fastest impact on policy reform regarding climate change and carbon emissions.”

“We are delighted that the Barry Goldwater Scholarship program has recognized the hard and innovative work of Clare and Pradnya,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “Their research, in the fields of chemistry and physics, illustrates the ambitious and visionary creativity of our students in STEM fields.”

Conducting research in the field

Born in rural India, Narkhede said her interest in the natural world was kindled on her family’s farm, where she contemplated the effects of chemical use on sugar cane crops.

As a member of UChicago’s crew team, she became troubled by the impact of industrial pollution on the ecology on the Chicago River. The experience led to a summer internship conducting computation chemistry research with Friends of the Chicago River and DePaul University. She presented her findings to the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Council, for which she continues to collect and analyze data and advise on how to lower levels of bacterial and pharmacologically active compounds in the river.

“To study the river, a dynamic biological system of massive scale and complexity, through the lens of chemistry was unforgettable,” Narkhede said. “The work’s immediate relevance in preventing potentially grave environmental consequences stoked an insatiable passion for harnessing chemistry research to better the world.”

Narkhede is currently a data analytics intern at the U.S. Department of Defense and a 2016 Institute of Biophysical Dynamics Scholar with UChicago’s Department of Chemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, researching single-cell epigenetics. She serves on the board of UChicago’s Women in Science and is a participant in Out in STEM, both groups committed to the inclusion of women and other underrepresented groups in the sciences.

As an undergraduate, Singer has worked with research groups in the Departments of Physics and Geophysical Sciences. Last summer she received funding from the Institute for Molecular Engineering to conduct chemical engineering research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. She is currently vice president of the University of Chicago’s Society of Women in Physics, which aims to increase diversity and inclusion in the department through events that allow undergraduates to engage with students and faculty.

Singer said her interest in climate change began in sixth grade with a decision to become pescatarian. Her interests developed further in high school when she visited an experiment site in Iceland that used metal poles to track a glacier’s retreat. “It was one thing to read about ice melting, the planet warming and sea levels rising,” she said, “but seeing once-buried poles lying exposed on the ice with my own eyes was more powerful.”

Narkhede and Singer were supported throughout their application process by the College Center for Scholarly Advancement, which supports undergraduates and College alumni through the highly competitive application processes for prestigious national scholarships and fellowships.

Prof. David Awschalom awarded defense department grant for high-risk, high-payoff research

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 16:10 -0500

David Awschalom, the Liew Family Professor in Spintronics and Quantum Information, has been selected as a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow, which supports bold and ambitious research that can have revolutionary outcomes.

The fellowships are awarded annually by the Department of Defense to researchers at U.S. universities to conduct high-risk, high-payoff work that can transform disciplines, create new fields or disrupt accepted theories. It supports innovative basic research as well the development of the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Awschalom, a founding member of the University of Chicago’s Institute for Molecular Engineering, is a pioneer in semiconductor spintronics and quantum information engineering, performing experiments that explore photonics, electronics and semiconductor-based quantum information processing at the nanometer scale. As a Vannevar Bush Fellow, he will explore the quantum properties of two-dimensional matter as a potential foundation for quantum information processing technologies, receiving $3 million from the defense department for such research.

“I’m honored to be chosen for this fellowship, and extremely grateful for the confidence they’ve placed in our students to productively engage in an exciting new area of research,” Awschalom said. “This generous support will enable us to attract outstanding graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from various scientific disciplines to search for new quantum states in atomically engineered, two-dimensional matter. We hope to reveal their existence, investigate how they interact with each other and develop ways to control their behavior.”

The research will be done in collaboration with Jiwoong Park, professor of chemistry at UChicago; University graduate students and postdoctoral researchers; Nitin Samarth, professor of physics and the George A. and Margaret M. Downsbrough Department Head of Physics at Penn State University; and the Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium at Penn State.

The defense department recently announced a total of 13 fellows, awarding up to $3 million to support basic research in core science and engineering disciplines that underpin future technologies such as nanoscience, applied mathematics and fluid dynamics.

The fellowship is named after Vannevar Bush, who served as the director of the Department of Defense’s Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II. In his 1945 report to the U.S. President titled “Science, The Endless Frontier,” Bush called for an expansion of government support for science, and he pressed for the creation of the National Science Foundation. Bush was concerned about how scientific research supported by the department during WWII could be sustained with a focus on peacetime goals, believing that basic research was “the pacemaker of technological progress.”

National Academy of Sciences honors Prof. Bernard Roizman for microbiology research

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 14:55 -0600

Bernard Roizman, the Joseph Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Virology, has been awarded the 2017 Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology for his pivotal research on how herpes viruses replicate and cause disease.

Supported by the Waksman Foundation for Microbiology, the National Academy of Sciences gives the award biannually to recognize a major advance in the field of microbiology. The honor is accompanied by a $20,000 prize.

“I am deeply honored to be a recipient of an award bearing Selman Waksman’s name,” Roizman said. “His research laid the foundations for discoveries of potent antibiotics, and over the course of half a century his pioneering research saved billions of lives. He continues to be an inspiration for scientists involved in research to curb the spread of infectious agents.”

Over the past five decades, Roizman’s contributions to the scientific understanding of herpes viruses have helped to improve human health. His research first identified viral herpes genes and proteins, as well as the structure of viral DNA, and defined the principles of herpes simplex virus gene regulation. He also constructed the first recombinant virus specifically targeted to malignant cells.

Using biochemistry, novel genetic strategies and cell biology, Roizman’s ongoing research focuses on how the herpes simplex virus, which has fewer than 100 genes, can take over a much more complex human cell, which contains more than 20,000 genes. This led to the first engineered virus, which has been used to study and target lethal tumors in humans.

Roizman’s role as a mentor has extended his research beyond his lab, with dozens of graduate student and postdoctoral fellows energizing the field of virology in premier universities in the United States, Europe and Asia.

A member of the University faculty since 1965, Roizman was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1979 and to the National Academy of Medicine in 2001. He is a foreign associate of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the recipient of honorary degrees in the United States, France, Italy and Spain.

He will be honored April 30 during the National Academy of Sciences’ 154th annual meeting.

This article first appeared in Science Life.

Prof. Thomas Gajewski honored for pioneering cancer research

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 16:37 -0600

The National Cancer Institute, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded an Outstanding Investigator Award to Prof. Thomas Gajewski. The award supports scientists who demonstrate remarkable productivity in cancer research and guarantees $600,000 in direct costs per year for seven years.

Gajewski, professor in medicine and the Ben May Cancer Institute and director of the immunology and cancer program at the University of Chicago Medicine, is a pioneer in the field of cancer immunotherapy, one of the most promising approaches to cancer treatment in decades.

Cancer immunotherapy exploits the power and specificity of the immune system to fight cancer. First tested in melanoma, immunotherapy has led to complete remissions in many cancer types, often with limited side effects.

“The Outstanding Investigator Award pulls together a number of separate but related projects from our lab and blends them into one massive, cohesive undertaking,” said Gajewski, AB’84, MD’89, PhD’91. “Such funding is necessary for our lab and many others to make continual progress toward preventing and treating cancer using the host immune system. It inspires us to be even more aggressive, to move the field forward as broadly and quickly as we can.”

By providing seven years of financial stability, these awards encourage investigators to take on long-term projects with significant potential.

“It allows funded investigators to take greater risks and be more adventurous in their research,” Gajewski said. “We can now focus entirely on doing the work and worry less about writing grant applications, making us more productive and efficient.”

Gajewski’s team studies new ways to overcome a tumor’s ability to resist immunotherapy, with a focus on drugs that help the immune system, especially T cells, gain access to tumor sites.

Their approach is multidimensional. “We have treated a large number of melanoma patients using immunotherapies,” he said, “and we now have a great deal of data about the interactions between a patient’s tumors and his or her immune system. We know who responded to treatment and who didn’t. Now we’re cataloguing genetic clues that correlate with response versus resistance. This not only should help us predict who is most likely to benefit, but more importantly identify new therapies to overcome resistance and expand efficacy.”

They are also looking at connections between the gut microbiota—the microbes that live in a patient’s digestive tract—and the immune system’s response to cancer. In 2015, Gajewski’s laboratory showed that a particular strain of bacteria in the digestive tracts of mice could stimulate the immune system to attack tumor cells. They are now refining this approach and analyzing a large cohort of human samples.

A third element is investigation of a protein complex known as STING—short for STimulator of INterferon Genes—which plays a crucial role in detecting cells in which the DNA is in the wrong place, within the cell but outside the nucleus. In 2014, Gajewski’s laboratory showed how the STING pathway signals the body’s innate immune system to attack such tumor cells. “We are now working with a small molecule drug that appears to trigger this response when injected directly into a tumor,” he said. Clinical testing is underway.

“So much of this work is collaborative,” Gajewski said. “We have a lot of faculty and trainees working together to translate these basic observations into systems we can test in the clinic. A major next step is to integrate the various components.”

Being awarded an OIA is “a significant honor and a pleasant surprise,” added Gajewski. “It celebrates and builds on a long research path, made possible by public as well as private support.”

—Story first appeared on UChicago’s Science Life blog.

Fourth-year to study applied mathematics with Churchill Scholarship

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:30 -0600

Fourth-year Seth Musser has won a Churchill Scholarship, the most prestigious foreign fellowship for students in the sciences. The scholarship offers Musser full funding to pursue a master’s degree in applied mathematics at the University of Cambridge, beginning in fall 2017.

Musser said the courses he will pursue at Cambridge will provide the mathematical foundation he needs to prepare him for research in high-energy theory—specifically, the quest to find string theory’s implications for the observable world and testing it and other theories proposing to unify the four fundamental forces.

“The opportunity to study at Cambridge is an unparalleled chance for me to spend an entire year solely focused on learning theory,” said Musser, who plans eventually to pursue a doctoral degree in theoretical physics. “The mathematics program is known for being exceptionally rigorous and for presenting things in elegant ways that emphasize symmetries. It will provide me a firm base on which to build future research.”

Musser, who will graduate this spring with honors from the College in mathematics and physics, is one of 15 scholars selected from the United States. He is the 14th UChicago student to win the award, which was announced Jan. 26.

“The Churchill Scholarship is a fitting recognition of Seth’s creativity and hard work, but also an intellectual curiosity that gives shape to his long-term interests in mathematics and theory,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “We are very proud to see our undergraduates build their engagement with original research into plans for innovative graduate study and professional work. We commend Seth warmly on this accomplishment.”

Movie, Einstein provide early inspiration

Musser is currently pursuing research with William Irvine, associate professor of physics with the James Franck and Enrico Fermi institutes, conducting simulations to study how wings perform in a superfluid—a liquid with zero viscosity that flows without loss of kinetic energy.

“Seth demonstrates tremendous engagement with the research and great promise as a scientist,” Irvine said. “I have every confidence that he will flourish at Cambridge and beyond.”

Musser grew up in rural Myerstown, Penn., and said his interest in physics began in first grade while watching the movie “Home Alone,” in which the main character constructs a series of Rube Goldberg machines to deflect a pair of burglars after his parents left him on his own. “I was endlessly fascinated by those elaborate traps and mechanical systems,” he said.

At age 12, Musser read a biography of Albert Einstein and learned the theoretical physicist knew calculus by age 14. “I was worried,” Musser said. “In my mind, that meant I had two years to learn it.” He lobbied his local high school principal to let him take advanced math classes, sitting outside his office until he relented. “I had a fire lit under me,” Musser said, “being behind Einstein.”

Each summer at UChicago, Musser took part in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates, a competitive program that funds undergraduate students pursuing scientific research. His original work on Riemann ellipsoids, produced during his second summer in the program, earned him a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in spring 2016.

Musser has served as a mathematics tutor, leading twice-weekly tutorial sessions for students taking introductory calculus courses, and is now a reader in the Department of Mathematics.

Each year, the College may endorse up to two Churchill candidates for consideration at the national level. Musser was supported throughout his application process by the College Center for Scholarly Advancement, which supports all undergraduates and College alumni through the highly competitive application processes for prestigious national scholarships and fellowships.

National Academy of Sciences honors Prof. Sian Beilock for psychology research

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 10:00 -0600

Sian Beilock, the Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology, has been awarded the 2017 Troland Research Award for her pioneering work on anxiety and performance in high-stress situations.

The National Academy of Sciences gives the award annually to two investigators no older than 40 to recognize their unusual achievements and to further research in the field of experimental psychology. The honor is accompanied by a $75,000 prize.

“Uncovering the brain and body factors that explain why we sometimes perform poorly in highly stressful situations has tremendous implications for our daily lives,” Beilock said. “It is an honor to have this research recognized by the National Academy, and I look forward to furthering our understanding of how worries, anxiety and pressure relate to learning and performance from the classroom to the athletic field to the workplace.”

The research of Beilock, who is executive vice provost at the University, sits at the intersection of cognitive science and education, exploring how the brain, mind and body support learning and why performance breaks down in high-stress or high-pressure situations. In her laboratory, the Human Performance Lab, Beilock uses research methods ranging from performance on tests to neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI to better understand how thinking and reasoning change when the pressure is on and the techniques people can successfully employ to perform their best when it matters most. Her work also takes her into the classroom to conduct large-scale studies with students from early elementary school through college.

In addition to Beilock’s work exploring “choking under pressure” in all types of performance situations, from test-taking and public speaking to athletics, she also has investigated the power the body and its physical surroundings have in shaping how humans think, feel and behave. Beilock’s recent work has examined the anxiety parents and their children feel about doing math and how this math anxiety can hinder children’s school achievement.

Beilock’s research has resulted in more than 100 scientific papers and two critically acclaimed books: Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveals About Getting It Right When You Have To and How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel. Her work has produced wide-ranging insights into education, athletic performance and workplace training, resulting in techniques through which people can improve their performance both in daily tasks and on some of the world’s largest stages.

A member of the University faculty since 2005, Beilock joined the Provost’s office in the fall of 2014 as vice provost for academic initiatives. She was named executive vice provost last year.

Beilock will be honored April 30 at a ceremony during the National Academy of Sciences’ 154th annual meeting. This is the second year in a row that a member of the UChicago faculty was selected for the Troland award; David Freedman, a professor of neurobiology, received the honor in 2016.

Prof. Martha Nussbaum to deliver Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 11:15 -0600

World-renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, will deliver the 2017 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on May 1 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Her talk, “Powerlessness and the Politics of Blame,” will draw upon her years of work on the role of emotion in politics to explore the emotional dynamics at play in American and other societies, including the ways in which uncertainty leads to the blaming of outsider groups.

The lecture, established by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1972, is considered the federal government’s highest honor in the humanities. Previous speakers include jurist and law professor Paul Freund, writer Saul Bellow, historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., literary critic Helen Vendler and filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Leon Kass, the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus of Social Thought and the College, was selected in 2009, joining former UChicago scholars Edward Shils (1979) and John Hope Franklin (1976) as past lecturers.

“I'm deeply honored to be invited to deliver the Jefferson Lecture, and happy to have this chance to speak for the humanities at a time when they are under threat—both in our nation and all over the world,” said Nussbaum, who last year was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy for contributions that include developing a measure of global welfare that focuses on human capabilities rather than only on economic growth.

NEH Chairman William D. Adams said: “We are deeply honored that Martha Nussbaum has agreed to give the 2017 Jefferson Lecture, and we look forward to learning her thoughts on ‘Powerlessness and the Politics of Blame.’ Across her long and immensely productive career, Martha has been a tireless and peerless advocate for the role and utility of philosophy in our public life. With this honor, we celebrate at once her philosophical achievements and her example as an engaged and passionate public philosopher.”

Nussbaum has earned international acclaim for her work on moral and political theory, emotions, human rights, social equality, education, feminism, and ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Her Jefferson Lecture will draw from her latest book project, which brings a philosophical view to political crises in America, Europe and India by offering a deeper understanding of how fear, anger, disgust and envy interact to create a divisiveness that threatens democracy.

“It is urgent for us to understand ourselves better, to see why we have arrived at this state of division, hostility and non-communication,” Nussbaum said. “A philosophical approach, focused on a close look at human emotions, offers that understanding of ourselves … I believe it also offers us strategies of hope and connection.”

Dean Thomas J. Miles, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, said he was pleased to see the NEH honor Nussbaum and her achievements.

“Martha joins an esteemed list of thinkers, writers, humanitarians and artists who have been chosen to deliver this important lecture,” he said. “It is a well-deserved recognition, given her influential contributions on a range of issues, including social justice, equality and human dignity. Martha’s longstanding and passionate support for humanities education makes her selection for the Jefferson Lecture especially fitting.”

Nussbaum is appointed in the Law School and Department of Philosophy. She also is an associate in the Department of Classics, the Divinity School, and the Department of Political Science, as well as a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and a board member of the Human Rights Program.

Nussbaum, who has written and edited dozens of books and written more than 400 papers, received her MA and PhD from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Chicago, she was a University Professor at Brown University. From 1986 to 1993, while teaching at Brown, Nussbaum was also a research advisor at the World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki, a branch of the United Nations University. She is a founding president of the Human Development and Capability Association, and she has received 57 honorary degrees from universities in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. In addition to the Kyoto Prize, Nussbaum has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in 2012, the Nonino Prize in 2015 and the Inamori Ethics Prize, also in 2015, among others.

Tickets will be available to the public beginning in April through neh.gov. The lecture is free and open to the public and will stream live online at neh.gov.

Prof. Amir Sufi awarded Fischer Black Prize honoring top finance scholar under 40

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 11:45 -0600

Amir Sufi, the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has been awarded the 2017 Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association.

Honored for his groundbreaking research on household debt and the financial crisis, Sufi received the award Jan. 7 at the annual meeting of the American Finance Association.

Recognizing the top finance scholar under the age of 40, the Fischer Black Prize honors the memory of Fischer Black, formerly a general partner at Goldman Sachs and a professor at Chicago Booth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose seminal research included the development (with Myron Scholes) of the widely applied Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model.

Established in 2002, the biennial prize honors individual financial research and is awarded for a body of work that best exemplifies the Fischer Black hallmark of developing original research that is relevant to finance practice.

Sufi’s research on household debt, the Great Recession, consumption and the economy has been publicized widely and has been presented to policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, and the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

His body of recent research on debt forms the basis of his book co-authored with Atif Mian: House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014. The book made the Financial Times shortlist for “Best Business Book of the Year” in 2014.

Sufi and his co-author reveal in House of Debt how the Great Recession and Great Depression, as well as the current economic malaise in Europe, were caused by a large run-up in household debt followed by a significantly large drop in household spending.

"We are delighted that Amir has been recognized in this way. His work on debt markets and particularly the role of household debt in the financial crisis is truly path-breaking, and continues to have important implications for the U.S. economy,” said Douglas Skinner, interim dean of Chicago Booth.

“It is remarkable that, of the seven times this award has been given since its inception in 2003, Booth faculty have won three times.”

Other Booth recipients of the prize include Prof. Raghuram Rajan, who was awarded the inaugural prize in 2003; and former Booth faculty member Tobias Moskowitz, who taught at Booth from 1998-2016 and received the prize in 2007.

Sufi has been a member of the Booth faculty since 2005.

Rhodes scholar to examine higher education policy in southern Africa

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 15:30 -0600

Lilian Dube, AB’15, has won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford next fall. A native of Zimbabwe, Dube is the 51st student from the University of Chicago to receive the award and the second to win this year, joining Law School student Joshua Pickar.

She will pursue two master’s degrees at Oxford—one in education and the other in English—with an eye toward higher education policy and curricula in southern Africa, particularly the tensions that exist between the humanities and technical-skills education. Dube was named one of two Rhodes scholars from Zimbabwe this year, it was announced Nov. 26. She will join the Class of 2017 Rhodes Scholars, including the 32 U.S. students who were named on Nov. 19.

“Oxford has phenomenal support in both disciplines I seek to pursue,” said Dube. “I hope to give back to the education system from which I emerged.”

Dube is currently teaching high school in Hong Kong, where she has designed critical thinking and writing lessons on topics ranging from poetry to ethics.

“Lilian’s plan to integrate the humanities with the work of technical education in Zimbabwe shows great depth, reflection and insight into what humanistic study is for and what it can accomplish,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “This is an example of the rich and unique perspectives that our international students bring to our curriculum, and how it can be applied after they leave the College. We commend Lilian on this great accomplishment.”

At UChicago she studied English literature, winning the Elsie F. Filippi Memorial Prize in Poetry for her thesis on violence and gender in the work of the Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. During her time in the College, Dube served as course assistant for a graduate linguistics class researching Northern Ndebele, one of Zimbabwe’s 16 official languages, and translated portions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest into that language. In 2012, she participated in an eight-week summer program in Ukrainian language and culture at Harvard University, and the following year she studied Renaissance literature and Russian poetry at Oxford. She was a member of the International Students Advisory Board and the African and Caribbean Students Association, and served as a resident master’s assistant for Booth-Phoenix house.

Dube would eventually like to pursue doctoral studies in education, enabling her to one day teach literature, education and writing at the university level. “I would love to mentor well-rounded African academics who have the potential to produce regionally and globally impactful scholarship,” she said, “especially among traditionally underrepresented groups.”

Dube was assisted by the College Center for Scholarly Advancement in applying for the Rhodes Scholarship. The CCSA supports undergraduates and alumni through the highly competitive application processes for national scholarships and fellowships.

Marshall scholar to explore technology’s civic potential

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 14:30 -0600

Erin Simpson, AB’15, has won a Marshall Scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Oxford next fall. The highly competitive scholarships, which were announced Nov. 28, annually enable up to 40 American students to study at the graduate level in any field of their choosing.

Simpson will pursue a pair of one-year master’s degrees in science at Oxford: one in the social science of the Internet, at the Oxford Internet Institute; followed by a master’s in comparative social policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention. The programs will allow her to explore technology’s civic potential from both a theoretical and practical approach.

“The British are leaders in digital government,” Simpson said. “The Oxford Internet Institute is the only major academic department in the world devoted to understanding the Internet through social science.”

Simpson, who also won a Truman Scholarship in 2014, is director of programs for Civic Hall Labs in New York, a research and development nonprofit she helped start that builds technology for civic organizations and advocates for the development of more equitable technologies.

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Erin Simpson, AB'15, wins Truman Scholarship

“Erin’s vision to improve digital government services shows remarkable creativity, energy and independence,” said Dean of the College John W. Boyer. “Her focus on civic technology demonstrates the integration of academic excellence and practice that we see in the College today at its very best. We congratulate her warmly on this achievement."

Simpson said antiquated technology in both the nonprofit and government sectors “compounds the inequities already faced by low-income communities at a number of levels.” As a public policy major at UChicago, she documented that reality in her organizing work in housing foreclosure prevention and in her case studies of Chicago welfare offices and libraries.

At UChicago, she got involved in “the civic side of tech.” Through her involvement at the Institute of Politics, she cofounded the University of Chicago TechTeam, an interdisciplinary volunteer group that remade websites and digital strategy for local government and nonprofits. She served as a fellow at Microsoft in Chicago, where she worked on civic strategy, teaching open data programs and running community-sourced innovation competitions, and spent time as a research fellow at the Georgetown Law Center on Deep Poverty studying best practices in social service delivery methods.

“Now, more than ever, we need to take a more critical approach to the ways that technology is influencing our civic life,” said Simpson, who plans to pursue a career in public service. “Social inequities are being replicated and amplified through our consumer technology, and our civic institutions need greater capacity to combat that trend.”

Originally from Menomonie, Wis., Simpson grew up in a rural community where the farm established by her family four generations ago is still in operation. She is the 23rd person affiliated with the University of Chicago to win a Marshall Scholarship in the past 30 years.

Simpson received guidance and assistance in applying for the award from the College Center for Scholarly Advancement, which supports undergraduates and College alumni through the highly competitive application processes for national scholarships and fellowships.