Out of the shadows
According to Hollywood legend, Eliot Ness, PhB’25, brought down Al Capone. The reality is more complicated.
Criminal mastermind
Sara Paretsky, AM’69, MBA’77, PhD’77, on being the mystery genre’s “aging diva” and more.
Where the art is
After a decades-long hiatus, Art to Live With is back.
Looking back
As we grow older, how beneficial is it to reflect on our youthful actions and experiences? Two UChicago professors weigh the virtues of living fully in the present and reliving the past.
Chicago Pile-1
The story of the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is one of science, of war, and of people.
Bellowʼs papers
What is it like to sort through the papers of one of America’s most celebrated writers?
Mammals like us
Two newly discovered species bring humans closer to understanding our lineage.
Maroon menagerie
Meet some of the fantastic beasts UChicago faculty helped introduce to the scientific record and the popular imagination.
First amendment scholar
Constitutional scholar Sonja R. West, JD’98, on press freedom and its future.
Martin Luther
Remembering Martin Luther’s far-reaching legacy 500 years after the 95 Theses.
In full bloom
The University’s botanic garden celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Lexicographer
(Noun, an author or editor of a dictionary)
Mission to the Sun
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe gets ready to meet a star.
Seminary Co-op
Jeff Deutsch has a plan to save the Seminary Co-op.
Arctic legacy
From his first trip north as the youngest hand on a two-masted schooner, anthropologist Ernest “Tiger” Burch Jr., AM’63, PhD’66, was driven to learn about the Arctic and its peoples.
After internment
Mitsuye Yamada, AM’53, transformed her family’s internment experience into poetry.
Language learning
What if you took a language class and actually learned to speak?
A life in math
How Ken Ono, AB’89, found life in and outside of math.
Bodies of work
Photographer Lewis Hine, EX 1904, captured the changing face of American labor.
America’s historian
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998), PhB’23, AM’24, PhD’28, was a US historian for the people.
Folk singer
How Lucy Kaplansky, LAB’78, made a career of folk music.
Small school talent
In the 1960s the Small School Talent Search sought promising young scholars in rural areas. Fifty years later, one of those students gives his perspective on the program and its legacy.
Ex-racehorses
Retired Racehorse Project founder Steuart Pittman Jr., AB’85, advocates for off-track Thoroughbreds.
War stories
Photojournalist Jonathan Alpeyrie, AB’03, shoots from the front lines.
Pioneering MD
Pioneering pathologist Nancy Warner, SB’44, MD’49, is helping other women scholars follow in her path.
Book smarts
Retired University of Chicago Press editor T. David Brent, AB’70, AM’71, PhD’77, brought imagination and enthusiasm to scholarly publishing.
Odyssey scholars
Launched in 2007 with an anonymous $100 million gift, the Odyssey Scholarship Challenge has transformed financial aid in the College. Meet six of the young people whose lives were also changed.
Cronin 1931–2016
Nobelist James Cronin twice expanded our sense of the possible, first in particle physics and then in astronomical observation.
Zoos and blues
In blues clubs, cocktail bars, and zoos, David Grazian, AM’96, PhD’00, investigates the artifice of authenticity.
Funmi Olopade
Olufunmilayo Olopade is attacking cancer from all sides.
Utopia Park
The Transcendental Meditation movement’s goals were utopian but life for its followers wasn’t always blissful, Claire Hoffman, AM’05, writes in a new memoir. Plus—“The Field of All Possibilities”: An excerpt from Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood.
Voting smarter
A start-up founded by three alumni helps voters think beyond the presidential race.
Battery pioneer
John B. Goodenough, SM’50, PhD’52, the father of the lithium-ion battery, sparked the wireless revolution. Now, at 94, he’s working on the next breakthrough.
Danny Lyon
The iconic photographs of Danny Lyon, AB’63, document more than 50 years of social change and life outside the mainstream.
War wounds
Poet and retired Navy physician Frederick Foote, AB’80, is helping wounded veterans recover.
Katharine Graham
The Washington Post’s Katharine Graham, AB’38, learned as she went—and made history along the way.
Kartemquin Films
For 50 years, Kartemquin Films has focused its lenses on social forces and the human lives they shape.
Business ethics
Reflections on teaching business ethics at Chicago Booth after the financial crisis.
Gravitational waves
Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves a century ago. Daniel Holz was part of the team of scientists that finally found them last fall.
Ana Castillo
Poet and novelist Ana Castillo, AM'79, on feminism, writing, and a momentous education.
City sensors
The Array of Things takes Chicago’s pulse.