Recent News

November 2015
Kam-Biu Luk from the Physics Division/UCB was among five other physicists was awarded 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Winner for experiments investigating neutrino oscillation for Daya Bay project. The five teams are comprised of more than 1,300 individual physicists, and all members will share in the recognition for their work. The award was accepted by team leaders Yifang Wang and Kam-Biu Luk (Daya Bay); Atsuto Suzuki (KamLAND); Koichiro Nishikawa (K2K / T2K); Arthur B. McDonald (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory); and Takaaki Kajita and Yoichiro Suzuki (Super-Kamiokande). Read the Breakthough Prize press release here.

April 2015
Lab's Perlmutter Featured in April 22 Hubble Telescope Documentary Twenty-five years ago, NASA launched one of the most ambitious experiments in the history of astronomy: the Hubble Space Telescope. In honor of Hubble's landmark anniversary, NOVA tells the remarkable story of the telescope that forever changed our understanding of the cosmos. Read the LBNL press release here.

November 2014
Saul Perlmutter, an astrophysicist with Berkeley Lab's Physics Division, and Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, were among the featured recipients of the 2015 Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences. The presentations can be found at here.

May 2014
On Thursday 8 May, the Institute of Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPA) organized a one-day workshop on Dark Matter. The speakers reviewed the astronomical, cosmological, and nucleosynthesis evidence for Dark Matter, new opportunities to detect dark matter, the nuclear physics of WIMP detection as well as a recent and on-going efforts to detect dark matter directly at the LHC, in underground experiments and with indirect detection techniques. The presentations can be found at here.

November 2013
On Friday November 15, 2013 the Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPA) celebrated the 20th anniversary. During these twenty years the Nuclear Science and Physics Divisions have together been leaders in the revolutionary changes in our understanding of neutrinos and cosmology. These advances and our current efforts to extend them will be reviewed in a series of short presentations at Perseverance Hall by R.G. Stokstad, D.R. Nygren, S.R. Klein, D.A. Dwyer, C.H. Faham, and S. Perlmutter. Read review the INPA 20th year celebration here.

October 2013
Daniel Dwyer of the Physics Division has won the 2014 Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics, which is sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS). The citation reads: "For innovative contributions to neutrino physics, particularly the broad and substantial role he played in commissioning, calibration and analysis in the Daya Bay measurement of the mixing angle theta-13." Read the LBNL press release here.

September 2013
For the second year in a row, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab's Physics Division has been named a recipient of the prestigious W.K.H. Panofsky Prize, awarded annually by the American Physical Society to recognize outstanding achievements in experimental particle physics. Kam-Biu Luk, a professor with UC Berkeley’s Physics Department, will share the 2014 Panofsky Prize with Yifang Wang of China's Institute of High Energy Physics for their work on the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. Read the LBNL press release here.

September 2013
Berkeley Lab physicist Carl Haber, who developed a way to digitally restore old audio recordings that are too fragile to play, was named a MacArthur "genius" Fellow today (Wednesday, Sept. 25). Haber, a senior scientist in the Physics Division, is among 24 recipients to receive the prestigious award - $625,000 in unrestricted funds over the next five years - by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Read the LBNL press release here.

March 2012
Roe Appointed as Director of Physics Division: We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Natalie Roe as Director of the Physics Division at Berkeley Lab, effective immediately. Natalie has a distinguished record of research, and of service to the Division, to the Laboratory, and to the National High Energy Physics Community. She assumes the Directorship with broad experience, high standards, and strong vision for the future of the field. Read the LBNL press release here.

March 2012
Announcing the First Results from Daya Bay: Discovery of a New Kind of Neutrino Transformation. The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment today reported its first results, a strong measurement for the last of the unsolved neutrino "mixing angles," theta one-three, which determines how electron neutrinos (and their antineutrino counterparts) mix and oscillate among other neutrino flavors. Berkeley Lab initiated U.S. participation in the multinational Daya Bay collaboration, the most sensitive reactor neutrino experiment in the world, which is led by the U.S. and China. Co-spokesperson Kam-Biu Luk of the Physics Division will discuss the results at a special seminar in the Bldg. 50 auditorium today at 12:15. Go here for live video streaming. Read the LBNL press release here.

October 2011
Saul Perlmutter, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, has won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae." Perlmutter heads the international Supernova Cosmology Project, which pioneered the methods used to discover the accelerating expansion of the universe, and he has been a leader in studies to determine the nature of dark energy. Read the LBNL press release here.

July 2007
Saul Perlmutter and the members of the Supernova Cosmology Project share the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize with their competitors, Brian Schmidt and the High-Z Supernova Search Team, for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. Read the LBNL press release here and read the Gruber Foundation Announcement here.

July 2007
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has chosen Homestake, a former gold mine in the Black Hills of South Dakota, as the site for a national multipurpose deep underground science and engineering laboratory, following a lengthy competition. The multi-institutional Homestake collaboration was spearheaded by Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley under the leadership of Kevin Lesko from the Nuclear Science Division and co-director of INPA. Go here for the full story.

March 2007
Jeanne Miller, INPA's administrator, has retired after thirty-three years of outstanding service at LBNL. At her retirement party on February 27, she received well-wishes from over 125 colleagues and friends spanning three decades. Karen Hope has also left INPA to return to Missouri. We wish her the best in all her new adventures.

October 2006
George Smoot has won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics, along with John C. Mather of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The citation reads "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation." Go here for the full story. See photos from the celebrations here.

October 2006
Stuart Freedman has been awarded the 2007 Tom W. Bonner Prize for Nuclear Physics. The citation reads: "For his contributions to Neutrino Physics and the study of the Weak Interactions in Nuclei, in particular for his leading role in the KAMLAND experiment, as well as for his work on precision measurements of the beta decay of the neutron."

August 2006
George Smoot is one of the 18 members of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Science Working Group who have been awarded the Peter Gruber Foundation's 2006 Cosmology Prize. George was principal investigator of the differential microwave radiometer (DMR) experiment aboard COBE, one of three experiments aboard the spacecraft that not only confirmed that the universe was born in a big bang but shed light on its subsequent structure. Go here to read more.

August 2006
SNAP receives NASA funding for mission concept studies: In preparation for NASA and DOE's Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), NASA has selected SNAP as one of three proposals that it will support for advanced mission concept studies. SNAP, which is led by Berkeley Lab's Saul Perlmutter and Michael Levi, is a space-based experiment designed to learn the nature of dark energy by precisely measuring the expansion history of the universe. For more information see the press release.

July 2006
Saul Perlmutter has been awarded the 2006 Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome.The Antonio Feltrinelli prizes for Physical and Mathematical Sciences are awarded every five years. There is only one recipient of the international prize.

June 2006
Saul Perlmutter is a recipient of the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy. The award honors significant scientific breakthroughs that have had a profound impact on mankind. Saul will share the $1 million prize with Adam Reiss of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and Brian Schmidt of Australia for "discovering that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, implying in the simplest interpretation that energy density of space is non-vanishing even in the absence of any matter and radiation." Go here for details. INPA celebrated with a party.

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