Remembering Doctor Liu

By William Wilcox / March 12, 2013

Donald Liu drowned last August after saving two children swept out into Lake Michigan. He was survived by a wife, three children, countless patients, and the next generation of pediatric surgeons at Comer’s Children’s Hospital.

New Kids on the Block

By Adam Janofsky / March 12, 2013

Grey City sat down with five new faculty members appointed within the last year and half: Kenneth Pomeranz (history), Amie Wilkinson (mathematics), Patrick Jagoda (English), Nicolas Brunel (statistics and neurobiology), and Paul Nealey (the new Institute for Molecular Engineering). You might not know their names yet. But you may well soon. .

We Have Met the Committee and It Is They

By Raghav Rao / March 12, 2013

The Committee on Social Thought is one of UChicago's signature programs. Its members you've probably read in your Core classes. Its students have likely been your professors. But it's as hard to define as it is prestigious.

The Way Things Work: “Sustainability” on Campus

By Benjamin Pokross / March 12, 2013

The University's Office of Sustainability was created in 2008. Since then, its staff have been fixing up the Quads' oldest buildings, tracking greenhouse emissions, and changing lightbulbs all over campus. But how does it pick its projects—and how can we tell they're doing any good?.

Q&A: Nicolas Brunel

By Adam Janofsky / March 12, 2013

GC: Describe your work in three sentences or less. NB: My field is called computational neuroscience, and the idea is basically to use quantitative tools from applied mathematics, statistics, and physics to try to understand how the brain works. There are many different branches of computational neuroscience—some people work on mathematical models of single neurons...

Q&A: Paul Nealey

By Adam Janofsky / March 12, 2013

GC: A lot of your molecular engineering research focuses on computer chips. Can you describe your work in three sentences or less, as if you were explaining it to a political science major? PN: The size of the device is now on the molecular level, so it’s kind of consistent with molecular engineering. The traditional...

Q&A: Patrick Jagoda

By Adam Janofsky / March 12, 2013

GC: Describe your work in three sentences or less. PJ: I’m interested in the ways the network arose as a material metaphor in the late 20th century. So, why it is that we use the metaphor of the network to describe economic systems, the Internet, terrorist networks, ecosystems? My work looks at the ways different...

Q&A: Amie Wilkinson

By Adam Janofsky / March 12, 2013

GC: My brother got all the math genes in my family, but is it possible to describe your work to me in three sentences or less? AW: My work is in an area called dynamical systems, which is a space that evolves over time according to a set of rules. Both planetary motion and the...

Q&A: Ken Pomeranz

By Adam Janofsky / March 12, 2013

GC: Describe your work in three sentences or less. KP: Most of my work has been trying to trace long-run patterns of economic development, environmental change, state formation, and social structure in China—particularly rural China. One way of thinking about that is looking at particular sets of patterns of land and water rights and how...

“And then he talked about human frailties”: Richard M. Daley

By Sam Levine / December 4, 2012

Chicago's longest-serving mayor needs little introduction. But what is he doing now?

The Way Things Work: University Lobbying

By Celia Bever / December 4, 2012

How Administration exerts influence on the hill.

Grey City: What Lies in Store for Campus Activists?

December 4, 2012

The last protests of the "99 percent" have died down. What now?