3:28 p.m., July 6, 2009----Thomas K. Gaisser, UD's Martin A. Pomerantz Chair of Physics and Astronomy, has received Germany's Humboldt Research Award in recognition of lifetime achievements in research.

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The prestigious award, conferred by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, honors eminent academic researchers “whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in future.”

The recipient must be nominated for the award by distinguished scientists/scholars employed by a university or research institution in Germany.

Gaisser was nominated for the award by physics professors Hermann Kolanoski at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Karl-Heinz Kampert, chair of particle astrophysics at the University of Wuppertal, and Christian Spiering at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Zeuthen.

The award, valued at 60,000 euros, enables the recipient to spend six months to a year at a German research institution working with colleagues on a research project.

Gaisser plans to travel to Germany in September to work with Kolanoski and his research group on particle physics, analyzing data captured by the world's largest neutrino telescope called “IceCube,” which is being built nearly two miles deep in the Antarctic ice by an international research team coordinated by scientists at the University of Wisconsin.

Gaisser is leading the UD team from Bartol Research Institute in the Department of Physics and Astronomy that is building “IceTop,” the telescope's surface array of detectors. For the past two years, the members of the scientific team have blogged about their experiences at the South Pole, with the latest entries on this Web site. Gaisser currently is the spokesperson for IceCube.

Neutrinos are weakly interacting, high-energy particles that can tell us more about phenomena ranging from the sun's activity and Earth's structure, to the origins of cosmic-ray particles in the early universe.

Besides analyzing the scientific data that IceCube is providing as the telescope nears completion and publishing the results, Gaisser says he also wants to build stronger research collaborations with scientists in Germany, “to work together in a more coherent way.”

“It's a very nice opportunity, and I'm really looking forward to it,” Gaisser says.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), after whom the award is named, was “a nature researcher and explorer, universal genius and cosmopolitan, scientist and patron,” as noted on the foundation's Web site. Considered to be the founder of such disciplines as physical geography, climatology, ecology, and oceanography, he also was admired for his selfless sponsorship of other young talents, among them the premier chemist and teacher Justus von Liebig, developer of the laboratory method of teaching chemistry, and the composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Article by Tracey Bryant
Photo by Kathy Atkinson