Tomorrow’s innovators engage with UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering for admitted students visit

Last week, 46 newly admitted students from across the globe arrived at UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering last week for a slate of tours, talks and one-on-one interactions with faculty to get to know the school that will become the starting point for their future endeavors. 

“The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at UChicago is designed to tackle the world’s toughest problems, so it’s only natural that the school attracts the world’s brightest young minds,” said Dean Nadya Mason. “Simply put, this is a place where your innovations and insights can have a positive impact. This is a place where students can change the world.”  

During the two-day visit – the first of two sessions for students admitted for fall 2024 – students joined discussions, participated in events and heard presentations that highlighted PME’s unique theme structure. The school’s innovative organizational structure approaches research with an interdisciplinary lens focused around critical global challenges, including speeding the transition to renewable energy, ensuring a clean water supply, advancing quantum science and technology and treating – ultimately preventing – numerous cancers, infections, allergies and auto-immune diseases. PME pulls students from 8+ science and engineering disciplines.  

This novel interdisciplinary approach fosters collaboration among researchers who would be siloed in a traditional engineering school structure.  

“One of the most exciting things about UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering – and one of the things that brought me here – is how interdisciplinary we are,” said PME Assoc. Prof. Andrew Ferguson, who serves as Chair of the Admissions Committee. “Students who come here won’t be locked in rigid silos. Here, immunologists brainstorm with quantum engineers and materials scientists join with energy storage experts to tackle the world’s biggest problems.” 

The students also had the opportunity to visit the state-of-the-art facilities where PME students and faculty work, including the Soft Matter Characterization Facility, the Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility and, through one of PME’s powerful partnerships, Argonne National Laboratory. 

“We expect great things of these students,” Ferguson said. “These are the people behind the next great innovations to come out of UChicago’s Pritzker Molecular Engineering. We’re proud to be the launching pad for their careers.” 

The next admitted students visit will be in late March.