---
title: UMD Physicists Play Key Roles in Nobel Prize for Cosmic Neutrino Discovery
date: 2026-10-08T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/umd-physicists-play-key-roles-in-nobel-prize-for-cosmic-neutrino-discovery"
section: Articles
---
# UMD Physicists Play Key Roles in Nobel Prize for Cosmic Neutrino Discovery

*October 8, 2026* — by [UMD IceCube Team](/author/umd-icecube-team)


> Over decades, the researchers helped build and operate the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

*Erik blaufuss south pole station antarctica 2025 26 1920x1080 — Research Scientist Erik Blaufuss, UMD's lead for IceCube maintenance and operations, worked at South Pole station, Antarctica, from Dec. 2025 to Feb. 2026. (Courtesy of Erik Blaufuss)*

<span>University of Maryland Physics Professor Greg Sullivan remembers raising an eyebrow at an idea shared during a professional workshop he attended in the early 1990s: a cosmic particle detector made up of thousands of light sensors embedded throughout a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice. </span>

<span>The audacious proposal was the centerpiece of a search for never-before-observed high-energy neutrinos — almost massless particles that can carry information from black holes and the cores of stars — that Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was advancing.</span>

<span>“At first blush, I thought to myself he was crazy!” Sullivan said recently. “But, fortunately for me, after talking with him over time, he convinced me of his vision.”</span>  
  
<span>Halzen was awarded the </span>[<span>2026 Nobel Prize in physics</span>](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026/press-release/)<span> on Tuesday "for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin," the Nobel Committee announced. It noted that he "has led an international team of researchers and engineers” including Sullivan, who served as a lead scientist and spokesman for the project when it came online in 2011 and announced its first neutrino observation in 2013.</span>

<span>“I am very grateful to his leadership and vision, which have benefited so many of us, including a large IceCube group that has grown at UMD,” Sullivan said this week.</span>

<span>The Maryland IceCube team joined the collaboration 25 years ago, and today comprises one of the largest groups out of the 450 scientists from 14 countries. In addition to Sullivan, it currently includes physics faculty members Kara Hoffman, Erik Blaufuss, Michael Larson and Brian Clark; software engineer Don la Dieu; postdoctoral scholars Bennett Brinson ’20 and Rachel Procter-Murphy Ph.D. ’26; and graduate students Taylor St Jean, Emma Tintinger and Aishwarya Vijai. Over the years, the group has advised 17 graduate students.</span>

<span>UMD physicists helped lead the design and construction of IceCube’s computer data systems, developed the software used to analyze the data and built an alert system that allows telescopes worldwide to make coordinated observations of interesting events within minutes. They play a major role in operating the observatory and lead a major share of the collaboration's data analysis.</span>

<span>“This year's Nobel Prize in physics recognizes a transformative vision that opened a new window on the universe. I congratulate Francis Halzen and the entire IceCube team on this well-deserved honor,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “We are proud of the University of Maryland researchers who contributed to this vision over a quarter century and continue to advance neutrino astronomy and deepen our understanding of the cosmos’s most powerful phenomena.”</span>


*A woman in a reflective vest and winter gear in front of a plane in the snow — Postdoctoral researcher Rachel Procter-Murphy Ph.D. &#039;26 at South Pole station, Antarctica. (Courtesy of Erik Blaufuss)*


<span>IceCube has recorded data nearly continuously since its completion in 2011. A National Science Foundation-funded maintenance and operations program keeps it running, covering everything from the computers at the South Pole to the software that turns raw flashes of light into usable data. To support this effort, the Maryland group maintains several core software systems responsible for the analysis, filtering and simulation of IceCube data. Sullivan became Maryland’s lead for maintenance and operations starting in 2010, and Blaufuss, a research scientist, recently assumed that role. </span>

<span>Blaufuss led the creation of IceCube's real-time alerts, which notify telescopes worldwide, usually within a minute, when the detector sees a likely cosmic neutrino. Those alerts—now a routine part of multimessenger astronomy—have led to high-energy neutrino discoveries.</span>

<span>Larson, an assistant research scientist in physics, is now the collaboration's technical lead, responsible for the detector's technical operation across all member institutions. </span>

<span>"IceCube is a unique instrument,” Larson said. "The bulk of our detector is frozen into the Antarctic glacier, so we can’t easily fix the sensors if things go wrong; everything must work the first time and continue working for years. Researchers around the world are constantly working together to keep the detector running in these extreme conditions, and hundreds more are working to improve the science we can do with it every day."</span>

<span>Hoffman, professor and chair of UMD’s Department of Physics, is the principal investigator of the collaboration's analysis program, which supports the work of turning billions of recorded events into published results. Her research ranges from gamma-ray burst searches to next-generation detection techniques.</span>

<span>“The science reach of IceCube has far exceeded its original design goals,” she said. “Not only have we discovered astrophysical neutrinos, but we are making world-competitive measurements of neutrino oscillations and, thanks to the alert program developed at UMD, we are playing an essential role in astronomy.”</span>

<span>Clark, an assistant professor of physics, previously led the collaboration's diffuse working group, which measures the flux of astrophysical neutrinos at the center of this year's prize. He now chairs IceCube's speakers committee, which decides who presents the collaboration's results at conferences worldwide.</span>

<span>"Measuring the neutrino flux is hard because the signal is faint and spread across the whole sky,” Clark said. “You have to understand your detector well enough to trust a teeny signal over a large background. That took years of careful work from many people, and our group is proud to have been part of it.”</span>

<span>The IceCube collaboration finished deploying the IceCube Upgrade early this year. Maryland also contributed to that work on the ice: Blaufuss and Procter-Murphy </span>[<span>traveled to the South Pole</span>](https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/Procter-Murphy-neutrinos-IceCube-Antarctica-Physics)<span> to help bring the Upgrade online.</span>

<span>Maryland researchers are also helping to develop IceCube-Gen2, which would combine an eight-times larger optical array with a radio array spread across the ice surface, built to catch rare neutrinos at energies far beyond IceCube's reach.</span>




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Physics](https://today.umd.edu/topic/physics), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)