Three University of Chicago scholars have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2025. The election recognizes their "distinguished and continuing achievements in original research."
The newly elected members are Professors Rina Foygel Barber, Margaret Gardel, and Peter Littlewood. They join 120 other scientists and researchers honored this year for their contributions across various fields, including biological physics and statistics.
Rina Foygel Barber holds the position of Louis Block Professor in the Department of Statistics and the College. Her research centers on developing tools for estimation, inference, and optimization related to structured high-dimensional data problems. She also focuses on false discovery rate control and distribution-free inference with under-sampled data or unknown distributions. Additionally, she collaborates on modeling and optimization problems in medical image reconstruction. Her accolades include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship.
Margaret Gardel is the Horace B. Horton Professor of Physics, Molecular Engineering, and Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology. She serves as director of the James Franck Institute and the Center for Living Systems—a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center—and is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. Her work investigates how biological molecules form soft materials that facilitate cell and tissue-scale physiological processes like adhesion, migration, and shape change. Gardel's honors include the Tel Aviv University International Prize in Biophysics, a Packard Fellowship, a Sloan Fellowship, an NIH Pioneer Award, and she is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Peter Littlewood chairs the Department of Physics at UChicago while being part of both the James Franck Institute and Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. His research interests encompass condensed matter physics areas such as superconductivity, superfluids, strongly correlated electronic materials, collective dynamics of glasses, density waves in solids, neuroscience applications in energy sustainability. Previously he led theoretical physics groups at Bell Laboratories; Theory Condensed Matter group University Cambridge; Cavendish Laboratory Department Physics Cambridge; directed U.S Department Energy Argonne National Laboratory; founding executive chair Faraday Institution. He serves advisory boards Simons Foundation Flatiron Institute Paul Scherrer Carnegie Institute Science Royal Society London member American Academy Arts Sciences.