Stephen Olsen of IBS Center for Underground Physics has been named as a recipient of 2016 W.H.K Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics.

The prize is the highest honor for experimental particle physicists awarded by the APS for their outstanding achievements and contribution in experimental particle physics. Several of its recipients have also won a Nobel Prize in Physics. This year’s Nobel Prize laureate, Dakaaki Kajita of Tokyo University, won the Panofsky Prize in 2002.

The APS annually composes a selection committee of five members to choose the year’s recipients among candidates across the globe. The prize consists of a $10,000 allowance and a certificate citing the recipient’s contribution to the field. Dr.Olsen is named as a 2016 recipient in recognition of his leading role in the Belle experiment and will receive the prize next April at the annual meeting of the APS in Salt Lake City, U.S.

Dr. Olsen is a globally renowned researcher in experimental particle physics. He served as a co-spokesperson for the Belle experiment from 1992 to 2006 and joined the IBS Center for Underground Physics in 2014. He has been commited to the astroparticle physics research including the KIMS-NaI experiment for dark matter search and the AMoRE experiment for neutrinoless double beta decay search , and other projects in order to identify the origin and the formation of the universe.

The Belle experiment is an international collaboration of over 400 physicists and engineers from 13 countries at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation (KEK) in Japan. By observing CP-violation effects, it provided experimental confirmation of a theory that explains matter and antimatter asymmetry and the researchers who developed the theory were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008.

Three scientists, Jonathan Dorfan, David Hitlin and Fumihiko Takasaki, have also been named as co-winners.

“The prize is not just for me but for the many colleagues with whom I’ve been working. I will gratefully receive this award on behalf of hundreds of reserachers who participated in the experiment because they all deserve this great recognition,” said Dr. Olsen.

Notes for editors

For further information or to request media assistance, please contact:
Shi Bo Shim, Head of Department of Communications, Institute for Basic Science (+82-42-878-8189; sibo@ibs.re.kr)
Hyang-Kyu Park, Research Fellow, IBS Center for Underground Physics (+82-42-878-8517)

About the Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
IBS was founded in 2011 by the government of the Republic of Korea with the sole purpose of driving forward the development of basic science in Korea. It comprises a total of 50 research centers in all fields of basic science, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, life science, earth science and interdisciplinary science. IBS has launched 25 research centers as of October 2015.There are eight physics, one mathematics, six chemistry, seven life science, and two interdisciplinary research centers.