MADISON, Wis. — UW-Madison will celebrate physics professor Francis Halzen, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics earlier this month, during a public event Friday afternoon.
Halzen is the principal investigator for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. His research focuses on neutrinos, nearly massless, electrically neutral particles that travel at nearly the speed of light.
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Neutrinos, which are similar to electrons but have no charge, are produced during powerful cosmic events. Because they can travel through matter with little interaction, detecting them can help scientists trace those events to their sources in the universe.
Halzen is the 23rd Nobel Prize winner affiliated with UW-Madison and the university’s sixth physics laureate. The last active faculty member to receive a Nobel Prize was Howard Temin, who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries involving the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of cells.
The Friday event will begin with a fireside chat featuring Halzen and Interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots. A panel of experts from the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center will follow.
The panel, which will be moderated by center Director Dan Hooper, will include:
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Center Director Dan Hooper will moderate the panel, which includes:
Terry Benson, director of the UW Physical Sciences Laboratory.
Albrecht Karle, UW-Madison professor of physics and associate director for science and instrumentation at IceCube.
Lu Lu, UW-Madison professor of physics.
Doors open at 2 p.m. The event will take place in the Great Hall at Memorial Union and will be livestreamed. A reception will follow from 4 to 5:30 p.m. on the Memorial Union Terrace.
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