Dear Alumni & Friends,

I'm excited to introduce you to our new Senior Director of Development and Associate Dean of the Physical Sciences Division, Lori Smedley. We invite you to read more about her below and to welcome her when she begins on May 1.

We are also pleased to announce that Walter Massey, senior adviser to President Zimmer and chair of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization, will receive the National Science Board's prestigious Vannevar Bush Award for his lifelong leadership in science and technology.

As always, we'd love to hear from you.

Thank you for being supporters and advocates of the PSD,

Angela V. Olinto
Dean of the Physical Sciences Division, UChicago

First Black Hole Image

The Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes, including the UChicago-run South Pole Telescope, captured the first ever image of a black hole. The black hole is at the center of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. Read more below:

• The New York Times interviews Prof. Daniel Holz prior to the release of the image.
• Profs. John Carlstrom and Daniel Holz discuss the significance of the image on WTTW.
• Prof. Brad Benson talks about the findings generated by the black hole image on WBEZ.
• Graduate student Maya Fishbach shares what we can learn from the image in Gizmodo.

Gravitational Waves

Professor Daniel Holz discusses a new way to calculate the Hubble constant, a crucial number that measures the expansion rate of the universe and holds answers to questions about the universe's size, age, and history. Read more and watch the video.

Meet a UChicagoan Weaving Science into Art

Claire Zurkowski, a graduate student in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences, subjects rocks to extreme pressures and temperatures to simulate the environment at the center of the Earth. As she learns about the crystalline structures of her samples, she weaves the elements into textiles.

Voices

• Eugene Parker reflects on his study of the sun and the creation of the Parker Solar Probe.
• UChicago alum shares his passion for writing about the science behind food.
  • See also: µChicago
• R. Stephen Berry discusses new book on thermodynamics and need for scientific literacy.
• Video: UChicago's innovative research is shaping the future of computer science.
• WBEZ spotlights CompileHer, a UChicago student-run program that teaches computer science to middle school girls.

• Computer scientists design a way to defend against attacks to AI-based security systems. 
• UChicago grad student analyzes 14,000 shells to discover a powerful new tool to track climate change.
• UChicago scientists help catch rare decay of xenon-124 with XENON1T experiment.
• Chicago Quantum Exchange partners with IBM Q Network to advance quantum computing.
• UChicago researchers provide a promising boost for quantum computers.
• Scientists invent a way to trap a mysterious ‘dark world’ particle at Large Hadron Collider.
• Scientists climb UChicago buildings to study air quality and pollution.
• Researchers observe cold atoms exchanging information using intermediary particles. 

Awards

• Prof. Per Mykland earns Guggenheim fellowship to study the fundamentals of data architecture.
• Prof. Fred Chong receives Intel Outstanding Researcher Award for work on Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing.
• Twelve PSD graduate students earned the prestigious National Sciences Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
• Chemistry graduate student named Schmidt Science Fellow.
• Two UChicago graduate students win prestigious Department of Energy fellowships.
• Graduate student named 2019 Hubble Fellow.
• Graduate student receives Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion in STEM
The Department of the Geophysical Sciences is hosting Christina Richey, planetary scientist and astrophysicist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, for a seminar entitled "Let's Talk EDI in STEM" on May 3 at 2:00 p.m. in the Kersten Physics Teaching Center 106. The event is free and open to the public.

Compton Lecture Series
This series of free public lectures at the University of Chicago will explore the role of symmetry in the development of modern physics, how it has led to a series of experimental searches for particle decay, and why a case of asymmetry is one of the world’s biggest unsolved mysteries. Saturdays through June 1 (excluding May 25) at 11 a.m. in the Kersten Physics Teaching Center 106.

Bahadur Memorial Lectures
In honor of Raj Bahadur, the Department of Statistics hosts Iain Johnstone, Professor of Statistics and Health Research and Policy (Biostatistics), Stanford University, for the twentieth annual Bahadur Memorial Lectures. May 6, Eckhart Hall 133 at 4:30 p.m. and May 9, Kent 107 at 3:30 p.m.