UMD News

Director of Public Relations:
Susan Beasy Latto, slatto@d.umn.edu
315 Darland Administration Bldg.
1049 University Drive
Duluth, MN 55812
(218) 726-8830 Cell: (218) 348-5688
Fax: (218) 726-7413

May 5, 2004

Contact:
Susan Beasy Latto, Director of Public Relations (218) 726-8830 slatto@d.umn.edu
Alec T. Habig, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics (218) 726-7214
John R. Hiller, Professor and Head Department of Physics (218) 726 7594

Assistant Professor Alec T. Habig, UMD Department of Physics has received the 2003 McKnight Land-Grant Award for his studies on high energy particles from space.

The winners of the McKnight Land-Grant Award were chosen for their potential and important contribution to their field; the degree to which their past achievements and current ideas demonstrate originality, imagination, and innovation; the potential for attracting outstanding students; and the significance of their research and the clarity with which it is conveyed to the non-specialist.

The elusive particle called the neutrino is the focus of Professor Habig's work. Habig studies high energy particles from space, to see what they can tell us about how they were made and what happened to them on their way here.

With the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector, Habig contributed to showing that a neutrino can unexpectedly change its type. A new experiment, "MINOS" , is being built to make a careful measurement of this behavior using a beam of neutrinos made at Fermilab (near Chicago). The neutrinos are measured there and 735 km later at Minnesota's Soudan Underground Laboratory. Habig and his students build hardware and analyze data for both experiments.

The McKnight award consists of a $25,000 research grant to be given each of the next two years. The funds will go towards supporting more students to help work on various projects and travel expenses to experimental sites in Soudan, Minnesota; Batavia, Illinois; and Mozumi, Japan.

For more information:
See Alec T. Habig's website:
http://neutrino.d.umn.edu/~habig/