June 30, 2023

Steve Sclafani, a recent graduate of Drexel's PhD program in physics, along with his team led by Naoko Kurahashi Neilson, PhD, an associate professor of physics in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences made a groundbreaking discovery at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. Neilson's team "led the production of the unique image by determining the galactic origin of thousands of neutrinos (tiny, astronomical "ghost particles") which typically pass through Earth undetected despite existing in vast quantities. The makeup of the first-of-its-kind neutrino-based image of the Milky Way Galaxy uses particles of matter instead of the usual electromagnetic energy." This discovery was published in Science this week.

Read the full article in DrexelNow!

Sclafani has been an active member of the graduate community at Drexel. He has been nominated for several graduate student excellence awards in research and mentorship and has presented his research at the Graduate College's Scholars Share: Conversations on Student Research Series in February 2020 (pictured right). He discussed his research at IceCube and identifying neutrino event types that have not previously been studied.

Read the DrexelNow article from January 31, 2020.

Image of the Milky Way Galaxy provided by IceCube Collaboration/U.S. National Science Foundation (Lily Le & Shawn Johnson)/ESO (S. Brunier).

Article by Rachel Mroz