US-SCAR Congratulates Francis Halzen, 2026 Nobel Laureate in Physics

6 October 2026

The United States Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (US-SCAR) congratulates Francis Halzen, Vilas Research Professor and Gregory Breit Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and longtime principal investigator of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, on the award of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognized his "decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory" and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin. It is the first physics Nobel awarded to a single laureate since 1992.

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Portrait of UW–Madison physicist Francis Halzen wearing glasses and a striped button-down shirt with his arms crossed, set against a blue background with yellow geometric line art designs. Credit: University of Wisconsin Madison.
Professor Francis Halzen. Credit: University of Wisconsin Madison

Halzen's vision transformed a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, wired in the dark beneath the geographic South Pole, into the world's largest neutrino telescope, and with it opened an entirely new kind of astronomy. Built and operated with support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Antarctic Program, and sustained by an international collaboration spanning more than a dozen countries, IceCube established that neutrino astronomy exists: it detected an astrophysical neutrino flux, identified sources from a flaring blazar to a nearby active galaxy, resolved neutrino emission from our own Milky Way, and anchored the era of multi-messenger astrophysics.

This honor also belongs to the wider community that made it possible: the drillers, engineers, winterovers, and support staff who built and sustain the detector through the polar night. Few achievements better capture what Antarctic science makes possible.

US-SCAR celebrates with Professor Halzen, the IceCube Collaboration, the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, and the entire U.S. Antarctic community.

For more information, visit the official Nobel Prize announcement: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2026/ 

Allan T. Weatherwax, U.S. Delegate to SCAR

About US-SCAR

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an international organization established in 1958 to facilitate international collaborations in Antarctic science, and SCAR serves as an advisor to the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS).

The U.S. SCAR (US-SCAR) Office is a focal point for U.S. participation in SCAR. The US-SCAR Office is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Sciences. The National Academies Polar Research Board serves as the U.S. National Committee to SCAR, and the U.S. Antarctic scientific community is represented by the US-SCAR Team. US-SCAR promotes polar science within the U.S. and the international Antarctic scientific community by facilitating the participation of U.S. scientists in SCAR activities and supporting U.S. attendance, particularly of early career researchers, at the SCAR Open Science Conferences, the SCAR Biology Symposia, and the SCAR International Symposia on Antarctic Earth Sciences.

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