News

Three U Chicago scientists have developed a new method of creating infrared light using quantum dots. The results have been published in Nature Photonics.

A new study by Arvind Murugan's group was published in Science which describes proofreading mechanisms used by cells to accurately replicate DNA. Riccardo Ravasio et al developed a model to compare the time lost in an error jam versus the time taken to correct the mutation.

Zoe Yan and Jack Covey named 2026 Sloan Fellows

Research from William Irvine's group was featured on the cover of PNAS this week. Pictured are 3D trajectories of turbulent particles colored by speed, showing two large vortices. Takumi Matsuzawa, Minhui Zhu et al. observed the expansion and decay of a blob of turbulence created in the center of a tank of still water. The results revealed steep fronts separating turbulent and undisturbed regions, the nonlinear transport and decay of the turbulent blob, and a persistent signature of turbulence late into the decay process.

Prof. Bozhi Tian, Department of Chemistry, received the 2026 Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award. This honor is provided by the Physical Sciences Division and offers $100,000 for intellectually exciting and innovative research ventures that enable new research directions.

Article from Prof. Steven Sibener , "Diffusivity and adlayer formation of C60 on oxygen decorated moiré patterned graphene on Ru(0001)" is featured on the cover of JVSTA. Two-dimensional (2D) materials provide versatile platforms for next-generation devices in quantum sensing, computation, catalysis, and photonics.

Prof. Thomas Witten has been awarded the 2025 Prize from European Physical Society Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Division:   
 
"for his seminal contributions to the statistical physics of aggregation, soft matter, and complex fluids, and for unveiling principles in the dynamics of polymers, interfaces, and disordered materials.”
 

The Nagel group introduced a new class of pluripotent metamaterials: trainable liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) metamaterials with a surprisingly beneficial trait—the ability to forget. Their article in PNAS describes how, after training LCE arrays to exhibit one behavior, their team was then able to “reset” the material using heat, so it could be retrained for different behaviors.

The annual Postdoc Town Hall is coming up this Thursday, October 9th at 12pm. Postdocs will meet with JFI Director Margaret Gardel to discuss issues affecting postdocs in the JFI.

On Wednesday, October 8th at 4pm there will be a reception in E123 and the GCIS East lobby celebrating the new year and updates to JFI spaces.

Zoe Yan received a 2025 Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for her exceptional ability and promise in basic research.

Arvind Murugan was named a 2025 Schmidt Polymath to acknowledge and support his novel research.

The Jerison & Dinner groups have developed a new tool for the identification and discovery of different types of dynamical behavior in a range of complex systems. In their recent publication in PRX Life, they train neural networks to infer the topology of dynamical flows from trajectory data by using contrastive learning on coordinate-invariant representations.

Dmitri Talapin received the ACS Award in Colloid Chemistry in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the field.

The Vaikuntanathan group found that biophysical systems have intrinsic limitations on their information processing power and explained how these limitations are overcome. Their article in Nature Communications uses tools from non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to demonstrate both the intrinsic limitations and how input multiplicity—behaviors such as the ability of enzymes to interact with multiple targets—can overcome them.