Michael Witherell

Prof. Michael Witherell's work in the 1980s on an experiment at Fermilab studying charm quarks brought him the prestigious W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics in 1990. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences last year, one of the highest honors accorded a scientist in the United States. In electing Dr. Witherell, the Academy noted his pioneering work in the application of two new technologies to the study of particle physics: silicon vertex detectors and high-speed data acquisition systems. Both technologies, now far more advanced, are extensively employed at Fermilab and other high-energy physics laboratories to study the fundamental structure of matter. Dr. Witherell's work, the Academy wrote, "profoundly influenced all subsequent experiments aimed at the study of heavy-quark states."

One of his current endeavors is the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment. Along with collaborators at UC Davis and around the world, Michael has helped to deploy and operate the world's most sensitive dark matter detector at the bottom of the Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota. Having been featured in the LA Times, Popular Science, and the BBC, LUX is poised to announce its first science results in the next few weeks and the world is listening!