Momentum builds for world-leading neutrino experiment hosted by Fermilab

Earlier this year, researchers, officials and the public gathered in the Black Hills of South Dakota to mark a major milestone as installation of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility began.

“We are at a place now where the project is gaining a lot of forward momentum.”

“We are at a place now where the project is gaining a lot of forward momentum,” said Jim Kerby, LBNF/DUNE-US project director for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “The past decade has seen serious planning, preparation, excavation and outfitting of the underground space. Now the steel is actually here and being sent underground to form the cryostats. DUNE is here. It is a reality.”

DUNE is the largest U.S. Department of Energy science experiment on American soil and an international collaboration hosted by Fermilab. The excavation work for DUNE’s enormous underground footprint began in June 2020 and was completed in 2024. The project has since been recognized by the Underground Construction Association for its outstanding engineering and design.

Demonstrating the significance of international partners for the experiment, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has contributed more than 5,000 tons of structural steel that will form the cryostats for DUNE’s detector modules.

“This is the first time that CERN has provided infrastructure to a project outside of Europe, so that in itself says something about how important DUNE is to the future of science,” Kerby said. “We fully intend to show that the investment of our partners will be worth it to them.”

The work being done to construct the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility will enable DUNE to begin its quest to unlock secrets behind neutrinos — often referred to as “ghost particles” because they rarely interact with other matter particles. Neutrinos make things even more interesting by changing between three varieties or what physicists call “flavors.” Thanks to several unique aspects of its design, DUNE will enable researchers not only to advance our understanding of neutrinos but also to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. The experiment could potentially help explain why we live in a matter-dominated universe.

Building on a legacy of neutrino discovery

Neutrino science has a storied 70-year history, with groundbreaking discoveries coming from global experiments such as the Homestake experiment in the United States, Super-Kamiokande in Japan and SNO in Canada. Now the Sanford Underground Research Facility, the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, will be the far site for DUNE.

DUNE’s unique design holds several key ingredients for successful discovery: the most intense beam of neutrinos in the world, a very long baseline, cutting-edge liquid-argon technology and a movable near detector.

Intense beamline and a long baseline

DUNE will be powered in large part by an upgrade currently being undertaken at the Fermilab Accelerator Complex, called the Proton Improvement Plan-II project. Once operational, the PIP-II linear accelerator will be used to generate this most-intense-in-the-world neutrino beam for the experiment. And just like DUNE at LBNF, PIP-II has important international partners contributing.

“PIP-II at Fermilab is the engine that will drive the LBNF,” Marshall said.

“PIP-II at Fermilab is the engine that will drive the LBNF.”

The beam of neutrinos from the Fermilab Accelerator Complex will be sent along DUNE’s long baseline — 800 miles through the Earth from Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, to the Sanford Underground Research Facility. And because neutrinos harmlessly travel through matter, no tunnel is required for their journey.

“This distance from Fermilab to SURF gives us sensitivity to the way that matter affects neutrino oscillations, and we might see something that deviates from the Standard Model of physics,” Marshall said.

The PIP-II team recently installed the first beamline component for the accelerator, the radio-frequency quadrupole, which will focus the accelerator’s beam. And soon, they will begin commissioning the cryogenic system that will cool the superconducting accelerator. “It’s an important year for the PIP-II project,” said Cristian Boffo, PIP-II project director. “We are making lots of important progress and building on our years of momentum to deliver this vital instrument to power DUNE.”

Liquid-argon technology

In addition to the power of PIP-II, the liquid-argon time projection chamber technology employed by DUNE’s detectors will provide researchers with more granular, precise imaging of neutrino interactions than other experiments.

The beam’s broad range of energies will give researchers more ways to investigate the physics of neutrinos, but accurately measuring the neutrino energy will require reconstructing these interactions as precisely as possible.

Liquid-argon time projection chamber technology used in the detectors enables DUNE to provide those reconstructions reliably and with unprecedented clarity. The technology and its potential for scalability have been successfully demonstrated at overwhelming levels in the past decade, from the pioneering ICARUS experiment to the massive ProtoDUNEs — one kiloton-scale prototype detectors at CERN. “The imaging capability is really important for measuring all of the stuff that comes out of these interactions,” Marshall said.

DUNE detectors near and far

Once completed, DUNE will have two detectors: one at the near site on the Fermilab campus and the other at the far site at the SURF.

The near detector at Fermilab measures neutrinos before they have time to oscillate into other flavors, enabling DUNE scientists to understand precisely the composition of the beam. Within DUNE’s ND-LAr — which stands for near detector-liquid argon — is a movable detector offering a higher level of precision measurement and a new way to fully characterize the beam. The near detector’s design will allow researchers to ​better understand how neutrinos interact with matter across different energies, which in turn allows for more accurate measurements of oscillations. Because neutrinos change their flavor as they travel, the energy spectrum of each neutrino flavor at the far detector will be difficult to predict.

“We want a movable near detector because we want to address a really challenging problem once you get to making precision measurements, which is that the the energy spectra of the neutrinos at the near and far detectors are not the same,” Marshall said.

Path to discovery

Once these detector components are installed, DUNE’s key design features will provide the ability to measure all of the oscillation parameters of neutrinos at once, in one experiment, with no ambiguity and at high precision.

Additionally, DUNE will have the potential to reach five-sigma measurements — measurements so precise that there is only a probability of about 0.00003% that new scientific results could arise by chance.

“What we call ‘five-sigma’ is really the gold standard for discovery-level research.”

“What we call ‘five-sigma’ is really the gold standard for discovery-level research,” Marshall said.

DUNE is expected to have the potential to reach five-sigma measurements within only a few years upon becoming operational, and DUNE could potentially reach mass-ordering measurements within one year.

“Once we get to this discovery level data, we can start connecting neutrino oscillation to really big-picture, open questions in physics,” Marshall said.

This research addresses key physics mysteries: the origin of neutrino mixing, the existence of additional neutrino types and the completeness of the Standard Model. Beyond fundamental physics discovery, the drive to realize neutrino experiments at unprecedented scales could yield unexpected technological breakthroughs and innovation for the benefit of society.

Building a state-of-the-art superconducting radio-frequency particle accelerator is a study in precision. Every component must go together exactly right, because the smallest flaw in assembly can compromise how the machine performs for years to come.

An SRF accelerator is made up of a series of thermos-like vessels called cryomodules that insulate metal accelerating structures, called cavities. These cavities enable the technology’s super-efficient particle acceleration, but only if their interiors are pristine and their components are installed with exacting accuracy. Misalignment or contamination can degrade performance. In fact, the interiors of these cavities must be spotless, as the tiniest particulates can degrade accelerating efficiency or, worse, render a cavity unusable.

The technicians at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are experts at this rigorous work. They assemble SRF cavities in a “clean room,” taking precautions by wearing protective gear that covers their head, clothing and shoes, along with a mask to filter their breath. But even with these measures, there is significant risk of contaminating the equipment and components.

So, the team behind the Proton Improvement Plan-II project at Fermilab decided to incorporate robots to assist humans assembling accelerator parts inside clean rooms. PIP-II is enhancing the Fermilab Accelerator Complex by building a 215-meter-long linear particle accelerator. The linac will produce high-power proton beams to support new physics experiments at Fermilab and will be used to generate the world’s most powerful neutrino beam for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, currently under construction in Lead, South Dakota, and at Fermilab.

“This breakthrough for the SRF community was only possible because of the team’s multidisciplinary composition and effective collaboration.”

To enhance precision and maintain an ultra-clean environment during assembly of SRF cavities, the PIP-II team brought in a collaborative robot, known as a “cobot,” in 2023. Unlike a standard industrial robot, a cobot is designed to work safely alongside people and react to contact in its environment. Where an industrial robot is programmed to carry out its task to completion no matter what and is kept in a cage for safety, a cobot is equipped with sensors that allow it to stop or respond if it feels unexpected pressure from bumping into something or someone.

This summer, after three years of development, the PIP-II team reached a major milestone: a cobot autonomously aligned a coupler on an SRF cavity in a clean room. A prime example of Fermilab’s commitment to driving technological innovation, this key step forward in SRF cleanroom assembly allows the cobot to next be deployed on a production cavity for PIP-II.

“This breakthrough for the SRF community was only possible because of the team’s multidisciplinary composition and effective collaboration,” said Cristian Boffo, PIP-II project director.

Precision in a clean room

The PIP-II linac will be made of 23 accelerating units — called cryomodules, because they supply the required liquid helium bath and insulate the cavities from the too-warm outside world, much like a Thermos. PIP-II uses five different types of cryomodule, two of which are called single-spoke resonators: SSR1 and SSR2.

SSR cavities look like very squat soda cans as big as a car tire, and they have a flange on the side for connecting a component called the coupler. Typically, cavities are assembled with two people working inside the clean room, ideally standing at least six feet away from the cavity to limit contamination. In 2016 and 2017, PIP-II technicians tried manually aligning and installing the coupler using prototypes. However, the pieces were heavy and awkward to lift, the angle of connection was unwieldy, and the tooling was too complex.

That’s where the idea arose to utilize a cobot. The PIP-II team needed cobotic help to align and install the coupler with the 16 bolt holes on the flange while minimizing the possibility of human contamination. This task requires submillimeter and subdegree precision — all before the coupler touches the sealing surface. As soon as the cavity is closed, the risk of contamination is gone, and human technicians can re-enter the process.

“We want to bring the technicians as far away from the cavity as possible while the cavity is open — not to replace human technicians,” said Mattia Parise, Fermilab senior engineer and the level-3 manager for the SSR cryomodules for PIP-II.

In December 2023, the PIP-II team acquired a cobotic arm with three joints — shoulder, elbow and wrist — that could be controlled by a human outside a clean room. Soon, they had successfully performed their first cobotic installation of a coupler on an SSR2 cavity. PIP-II then procured two additional cobots to boost research and development; over the following three years, they worked with several students from the University of Pisa in Italy and Northern Illinois University in the United States to develop alignment and assembly techniques.

The other piece of the puzzle was to automate the installation. “The goal was always to have this specific part of the process fully automated,” said Parise. “If it’s still semi-automatic and requires the operator to push buttons, you can still make mistakes because you rely on your senses and you’re trying to do alignment with submillimeter precision.”

To automate the coupling process, the PIP-II team added a camera to the cobotic arm. Once calibrated, the camera allowed the cobot to detect the flange’s central hole, align the coupler with the boreholes and connect them together.

In July 2026, they successfully performed the entire process automatically, achieving their three-year-old goal and paving the way for more automated assembly for PIP-II soon.

“Achieving autonomous coupler alignment was a critical first step,” said Tommaso Aiazzi, staff engineer and level-4 and subproject manager for the couplers for PIP-II.

Cobots in the future

All around the world, laboratories are developing robotic or cobotic applications to assemble accelerators or automate clean room processes. “What we are doing differently from everybody else is that we are not relying on plug-and-play solutions,” said Parise.

The problem with off-the-shelf products is that the software usually isn’t scalable or has other limitations because it was developed with a specific application in mind. “Here, we are developing everything from scratch,” said Parise. “We own our process, so we can easily change it because we developed this processing code with our needs in mind.”

This means they have complete adaptability for specialized accelerator applications that can also be tailored to any other existing process that would benefit from automation in a clean room — like the nanofabrication of microchips.

“Whatever application would benefit from automation, we are ready.”

The cobot is already speeding up other aspects of assembly, cutting some two- to three-hour cleaning and parts swapping steps down to about an hour. The team is now working to automate a swapping mechanism that currently takes 30 minutes down to as little as 5 seconds.

“There are many ways to improve things with cobotic automation,” said Colin Narug, a staff engineer at Fermilab who has led R&D on the cobotic activities since 2023. “This can cut away some of the more stressful points to make the clean room technicians’ lives easier — and produce better cavity results.”

In 2025, the team connected multiple SSR2 cavities together in a “string” — mostly using cobots. “It was not fully automatic, but we still benefited from this technology and this process,” said Parise.

The team is excited to implement automated cobotic alignment for an SSR1 string assembly this fall. “Whatever application would benefit from automation, we are ready,” said Parise. “Let’s go.”

I still remember clearly when, six and a half years ago, a few of us sketched the first SQMS logo on a board in a Fermilab hallway.

We knew it had to fit within the shape of a superconducting radio-frequency cavity, a technology that has been at the heart of Fermilab for decades. The name needed to reflect what we believed from the beginning: that better quantum systems require a fundamental understanding of how superconducting materials influence qubit performance, and that an important challenge would be putting everything together at scale. And, of course, it needed a “Q!”

At that moment, SQMS was little more than a name, a logo and an idea on a board.

I still find it extraordinary to think about what that sketch has become. Six years ago, that idea became a center, and the center became a community of hundreds of people across the United States and around the world. Together, they have built new experimental capabilities, connected scientific disciplines and trained a new generation of scientists and engineers.

That transformation did not happen because we set out simply to build a larger quantum research program. From the beginning, SQMS was built around a scientific question: What really limits the performance of quantum systems, and how far could we push them if we understood those limits from first principles — the foundational laws of physics?

That became the foundation of SQMS. When the Department of Energy selected SQMS as one of its five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers in August 2020, we suddenly had the opportunity — and the responsibility — to turn that idea into something real.

What followed has been one of the most rewarding scientific experiences of my life.

We built SQMS deliberately as a multi-institutional center that unites expertise from laboratories, universities, companies and multiple disciplines. National laboratories brought unique facilities and engineering capabilities; universities contributed deep scientific knowledge and generations of students; and industry brought fabrication, systems know-how, and the perspective needed to translate discoveries into scalable platforms.

And something important happened in those interactions: people did not simply contribute the expertise they already had. They developed new expertise together. We can see that the original idea worked: when we organize around a sufficiently ambitious scientific challenge, the boundaries between disciplines and institutions become less important than the capabilities each person brings to solving it.

From atoms and interfaces to quantum coherence

One of our starting questions was deceptively simple: Why does a quantum device lose its information?

Quantum information is extraordinarily fragile. Tiny disturbances in a material, microscopic defects at an interface, radiation, magnetic fields or imperfections introduced during fabrication can all create pathways through which quantum information disappears. We call this decoherence, and overcoming it remains one of the central challenges to building useful quantum technologies.

That question brought together people who previously spoke very different scientific languages: quantum-device physicists, materials scientists, chemists, accelerator scientists, microscopists, theorists and engineers. Together, they have progressively peeled back the layers of superconducting quantum devices.

For example, SQMS researchers connected microwave losses in niobium to the microscopic structure and chemistry of its surface oxides, identifying specific defects and mechanisms that can absorb energy from a quantum system. The center investigated why different superconducting qubit materials behave differently, including detailed studies of the structure and formation mechanisms of tantalum and niobium oxides and interfaces, and work explaining why the native oxide of tantalum can suppress magnetic defects and loss mechanisms that are more prevalent in niobium oxide.

Researchers discovered the formation of new defects, such as niobium hydrides, in qubits, which affect performance. And increasingly, SQMS has been able to connect microscopic materials properties directly to the performance spread of actual quantum devices — including understanding why devices fabricated in nominally the same way can nevertheless perform differently.

Importantly, this understanding has increasingly translated into methods for actively engineering better, more robust quantum devices. SQMS researchers showed that preventing the formation of lossy niobium surface oxides through surface encapsulation could systematically improve transmon qubit coherence, demonstrating that insights gained from materials science could be translated directly into improved quantum hardware. Transmon qubits are a specific type of superconducting qubit, engineered to be far less sensitive to the small fluctuations in electric charge that can disturb a qubit’s state, making it one of the most widely used qubit designs in superconducting quantum computing today. Today, SQMS routinely fabricates transmon qubit devices with coherence times in the hundreds of microseconds, with some exceeding a millisecond, well beyond the then state-of-the-art 50-100 microsecond values that our partners were observing prior to the center’s inception.

At the same time, researchers have looked beyond the material itself to understand how the surrounding environment affects coherence. Researchers have investigated additional mechanisms that can limit superconducting quantum devices, including magnetic flux trapped inside superconductors as they cool. 

Experiments comparing the same superconducting qubit above ground at Fermilab and deep underground at INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratory helped researchers separate the effects of environmental radiation, such as cosmic rays, from sources of noise within the device itself. The results showed that this intrinsic noise still has the greatest effect on overall qubit performance, but radiation can cause brief, identifiable errors that become more important as qubits improve.

SQMS researchers also found that magnetic fields, typically considered harmful to superconducting qubits, can make quantum devices more stable under carefully controlled conditions. This benefit was particularly evident in niobium devices that were surface encapsulated with tantalum metal. In these devices, applying a carefully controlled magnetic flux led to more stable qubit lifetimes without sacrificing long coherence times.

Together, these results show how the SQMS materials program has evolved from identifying sources of decoherence to learning how to control the material, the device and its environment to deliberately improve quantum performance. This progression matters enormously. A future quantum computer cannot depend on finding a few exceptional devices among thousands. Scaling requires reproducibility. We need to understand why one device lives longer than another, which fabrication steps introduce variability, and eventually how to manufacture quantum hardware whose performance can be predicted and controlled. 

To me, this represents an important evolution of the field: moving from observing quantum coherence, to understanding it, and ultimately toward engineering it.

From extraordinary coherence to new quantum systems

But understanding coherence was never the final objective. The next question was: What becomes possible if we can preserve quantum information for much longer? Here, one of the technologies that helped inspire SQMS has evolved into something entirely new.

Scaling quantum computing is not simply a matter of making more qubits or qudits. It requires hardware, cryogenics, controls, software and algorithms to operate as one system. SQMS has therefore also worked on the less visible, but essential, technologies of scale, including methods for transferring quantum information between physically separated quantum modules and for efficiently cooling large-scale systems.

This is a transition I find particularly exciting: we are moving from asking, “Can we make an extraordinary quantum device?” to asking,“Can we build an extraordinary quantum system?”

Quantum technologies becoming instruments for discovery

At the same time, technologies developed for quantum science began to find a natural second role in a particle physics laboratory as powerful new instruments for fundamental physics.

A cavity capable of preserving a single microwave photon for an extraordinarily long time is not only a quantum memory. It is also an exquisitely sensitive detector – potentially capable of detecting the incredibly faint signatures of particles left over from the early universe. And quantum processors themselves can become part of physics experiments.

This broader convergence of quantum technology and fundamental physics has also opened new approaches to precision measurements and tests of nature. Perhaps my favorite illustration is an experiment that asked an almost audacious question: Is quantum mechanics itself exactly correct?

Researchers used truly random quantum measurements generated by a superconducting quantum processor in a superbly sensitive cryogenic radio-frequency experiment searching for tiny nonlinear deviations from quantum mechanics. No deviation was found, but the experiment established substantially stronger constraints on how large such an effect could be. Other SQMS work is exploring how quantum technologies can test fundamental principles and probe new regimes of physics.  

There is something beautiful about that scientific circle: we built quantum technologies by learning how quantum mechanics works and then used those technologies to test quantum mechanics itself. That is the kind of unexpected scientific connection that becomes possible when technology and fundamental science develop together.

Learning how to compute differently

The hardware has also forced us to think differently about computation itself. Much of today’s quantum computing language was developed around the idea of the qubit — a quantum object with two basic states, analogous to the zero and one of classical computing. But SQMS’s cavity-qudit architecture provides access to many quantum levels within a single physical system.

This co-design between hardware and algorithms is essential. Rather than building a machine first and then asking scientists what to do with it later, the hardware architecture, control system, error-correction strategy, algorithms and eventual scientific applications need to inform one another from the beginning.

From better devices to new science

When I put all of this together, what stands out is how interconnected the work has become.

We started by asking why quantum information disappears, a question that took us down to atoms, oxides, interfaces and defects.

The challenge in front of us is no longer how far we can push an individual quantum device. It is how rapidly we can bring these technologies together into scaled, integrated and accessible quantum platforms capable of doing science. That raises a larger question: What infrastructure will scientists need to make that possible?

In many ways, SQMS has spent its first six years building pieces of the answer.

Building more than technology: people, places and a quantum ecosystem

Scientific ideas ultimately need somewhere to become real. Building on DOE investments across SQMS and its partner network, we set out to create the specialized environments needed for cutting-edge quantum research. As the science of SQMS grew, so did the places where that science could happen.

At Fermilab, spaces that had never housed scientific experiments became some of the most advanced quantum laboratories in the country. The Quantum Garage, once quite literally a garage, is today a 6,000-square-foot quantum laboratory containing six extra-large Bluefors dilution refrigerators and SQMS-developed experimental platforms for quantum computing, sensing, metrology and communications. Built collaboratively, it now supports more than 60 experiments running in parallel.

The Quantum Garage is one piece of a broader Fermilab infrastructure supporting quantum systems, superconducting materials and devices, high-magnetic-field experiments and cryogenic technologies needed for future scale.  

SQMS also built a distributed laboratory that connects complementary capabilities across partner institutions, from device fabrication and atomic-scale materials characterization to specialized qubit testbeds and unique experimental environments.

Together, these facilities form a scientific tool chain — from materials to devices to systems to experiments — distributed across institutions and connected by a common mission.

Building bridges between people

When I think about SQMS today, I increasingly think of it as a network of human connections. The collaboration was intentional from the beginning. No single institution, and certainly no single scientific discipline, possesses all the expertise required to solve the problems involved in scaling quantum systems.

SQMS therefore embraced a simple model: identify the problem first, then bring together the people with the capabilities needed to solve it, regardless of where they work or what field they come from. To me, this is what a national research center should do at its best. It should not simply distribute work among institutions. It should make the boundaries between them scientifically permeable.

Training a workforce by doing the work

The same philosophy has shaped how I think about workforce development. Some of the most powerful training happens by giving people difficult, important problems and the opportunities to solve them alongside experts from other fields.

Our students and postdocs are not watching quantum science from the sidelines. They are building devices, operating qubits in dilution refrigerators, characterizing materials, developing algorithms, collecting data, commissioning experiments and writing the papers that advance the field. In doing that work, they learn how materials, devices, engineering, computing and scientific applications fit together.

We have also worked to extend that experience beyond the center. In 2023, SQMS hosted the inaugural U.S. Quantum Information Science Summer School, which brought together 150 undergraduate and graduate students and professionals from national laboratories and industry, supported by more than 40 instructors. Participants combined classroom learning with hands-on experience in superconducting qubit and radio-frequency measurements, materials characterization and quantum algorithms.

That is the kind of workforce development I believe we need: not only teaching quantum science but teaching people how to do quantum science together.

Growing an ecosystem

Over time, the community around SQMS has grown well beyond the center’s formal boundaries. When we inaugurated the Quantum Garage in 2023, the first day of the SQMS annual meeting became an “Ecosystem Day,” bringing more than 300 people to Fermilab. By 2025, during the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, that idea had grown into “Exploring the Quantum Universe,” which brought together researchers, students, industry, national laboratories, government and the public to discuss both the science and what the field would need next.

That community will be increasingly important as quantum technology moves toward larger, more integrated systems. The next stage will require not only advances in individual technologies, but facilities sophisticated enough to bring them together and make them accessible to scientists who want to use quantum systems to pursue their own scientific questions.

Looking around SQMS today, at the laboratories we have built, the people we have trained, and the relationships connecting universities, national laboratories and industry, I realize that we have spent six years building many of the ingredients of exactly that future.

We built devices. We built laboratories. We built capabilities that did not exist before. But above all, we built connections — and those connections may ultimately be the most important infrastructure we leave behind.

Fermilab editor’s note: The following press release was posted by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Charles “Chris” Polly has been a central figure in Muon g-2 experiments for almost three decades. His leadership and contributions were key to achieving the most precise measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon in particle physics to date, with the latest result published in 2025.

He was a lead graduate student on the Muon g-2 experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The Brookhaven result, completed in the early 2000s, revealed a tantalizing discrepancy between experiment and theoretical predictions, making it one of the most closely watched measurements in particle physics and motivating decades of further research.

Polly was instrumental in the move of the 50-foot muon storage ring from Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York to Fermilab in Illinois. He helped lead the next generation of the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab as the Project Manager who led the design and construction of the experiment from start to finish, and later served as co-spokesperson when the collaboration announced its first result in 2021.

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U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright today announced nine recipients of the prestigious Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for their exceptional contributions to research and development supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) missions in science, energy, and national security.

“This year’s Lawrence Award recipients exemplify the ingenuity and determination that drive America’s leadership in science and technology,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “From achieving fusion ignition to advancing critical materials and high-performance computing, these scientists and engineers are tackling some of our nation’s most complex challenges and translating groundbreaking research into real-world capabilities. Their work strengthens our nation’s energy security, drives American innovation, and ensures the United States remains at the forefront of scientific discovery.”

Established in 1959, the Lawrence Award recognizes mid-career U.S. scientists and engineers for groundbreaking achievements across nine scientific and engineering categories. The award is among the longest-running and most prestigious science and technology honors bestowed by the U.S. government.

The 2026 Ernest O. Lawrence Award recipients are:

Charles “Chris” Polly, Ph.D. (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) – High Energy Physics – Honored for his “exceptional scientific and technical contributions to low-energy precision measurements in particle physics, most notably leadership of the experimental measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon with the Muon g-2 experiment.” 

Eric J. Schelter, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania) – Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences – Honored for his “fundamental chemical studies of energy-critical metals leading to new methods for their selective and sustainable separations.” 

Patrick Chain, Ph.D. (Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico Consortium) – Biological and Environmental Sciences – Honored for his “pioneering work in genomics and microbiome science, including discoveries of new bacterial-fungal interactions and revolutionizing the field by democratizing access to advanced bioinformatics tools.” 

Samuel W. Williams, Ph.D. (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) – Computer, Information, and Knowledge Sciences – Honored for his “pioneering contributions in performance modeling, hardware/software design optimization, and novel computer architecture for high-performance computing, enabling modeling of complex computational solutions, and increasing analysis speed, simulation accuracy, and computational efficiency.” 

Thomas Epps, III, Ph.D. (University of Delaware) – Condensed Matter and Materials Sciences – Honored for his “fundamental contributions to chemistry and materials science with applications in the chemical upcycling of polymeric waste, generation of high-performance materials from biomass feedstocks, and development of membranes for lithium-ion battery technologies.” 

Gregg Beckham, Ph.D. (National Laboratory of the Rockies and University of Colorado Boulder) – Energy Science and Innovation – Honored for his “transformative research in the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass and waste plastics via biology, chemistry, and engineering, yielding building blocks for sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials.” 

Andrea L. Kritcher, Ph.D. (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) – Fusion and Plasma Sciences – Honored for her “exceptional design efforts leading to the first-ever achievement of fusion ignition in the Laboratory, which is of major scientific impact to institutional and national missions, the private sector, and fusion interests within academia.” 

Michael Reed, Ph.D. (Nevada National Security Site) – National Security and Nonproliferation – Honored for his “vital contributions to national and international nuclear emergency response through the Advanced Visualization & Integration of Data (AVID) software, which broke existing paradigms by simultaneously fusing all radiological data into a single interface connected seamlessly to world-wide expertise.” 

Lijuan Ruan, Ph.D. (Brookhaven National Laboratory) – Nuclear Physics – Honored for her “outstanding leadership and ingenuity in the design, construction, and operation of novel detector systems in the STAR experiment, transforming dilepton final states into precision probes of heavy ion collisions.”

DOE will honor the recipients at a hybrid award ceremony in Washington, D.C., on November 13, 2026. The ceremony will be broadcast live online, and a recording will be available following the event. Registration is required for both virtual and in-person attendees. Due to space and security requirements, in-person attendance is limited, with registration closing October 30, 2026.

For more information and to RSVP, visit the DOE Office of Science Ernest O. Lawrence Award webpage.