Karsten M. Heeger is a German–American physicist and Eugene Higgins Professor of

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, where he also serves as both chair of the Yale Department of Physics and director o
Wright Laboratory
His work is primarily in the area of

neutrino physics A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that it ...

, focusing on the study of

neutrino oscillation Neutrino oscillation is a quantum mechanics, quantum mechanical phenomenon in which a neutrino created with a specific lepton lepton number, family number ("lepton flavor": electron, muon, or tau lepton, tau) can later be Quantum measurement, mea ...

neutrino mass A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small ('' -ino'') that it ...

, and

dark matter In astronomy, dark matter is an invisible and hypothetical form of matter that does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation. Dark matter is implied by gravity, gravitational effects that cannot be explained by general relat ...

Education and career

Prof. Heeger received his undergraduate degree in physics from

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

and his Ph.D. from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, where he worked on a model-independent measurement of the solar ⁸B neutrino flux in the

Sudbury Neutrino Observatory The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was a neutrino observatory located 2100 m underground in Vale's Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The detector was designed to detect solar neutrinos through their interactions with a larg ...

(SNO). Before joining the faculty at

, he was on the faculty at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

and a Chamberlain Fellow at

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

. Heeger has served on national and international committees including the

High Energy Physics Advisory Panel The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) is a permanent advisory committee to the United States Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, created in 1967 and organized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972. ...

(HEPAP), the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC), the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) Executive Committee, and the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

(APS) Committee on International Scientific Affairs. He served as the Deputy Chair of th
Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5)
from 2022 to 2023. Heeger was a member of the 2015 Nuclear Physics Long Range Planning Group and the US

ATLAS An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

Project Advisory Group, and has served on review committees for the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

, the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC). He is co-chair of the APS DPF Coordinating Panel of Advanced Detectors (CPAD). Prof. Heeger has been the director of the Yale Wright Laboratory since 2013 and was named chair of th
Department of Physics
at Yale University in 2019.

Research

Professor Heeger’s research focuses on the study of

s and

. He was involved in the resolution of the solar neutrino problem with the

(SNO), the first observation of reactor antineutrino oscillation with

KamLAND The Kamioka Liquid Scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND) is an electron antineutrino detector at the Kamioka Observatory, an underground neutrino detection facility in Hida, Gifu, Japan. The device is situated in a drift mine shaft in ...

, and the first measurement of the neutrino mixing angle q₁₃ with

Daya Bay Daya Bay (), formerly known as Bias Bay, is a bay of the South China Sea on the south coast of Guangdong Province in China. It is bordered by Shenzhen's Dapeng Peninsula to the west and Huizhou to the north and east. History The bay was a hideo ...

. Heeger is studying the nature of neutrinos with the CUORE

double beta decay In nuclear physics, double beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which two neutrons are simultaneously transformed into two protons, or vice versa, inside an atomic nucleus. As in single beta decay, this process allows the atom to move cl ...

experiment, performing R&D with Project 8 towards a novel experiment to measure neutrino mass, and assembling Charge Readout Planes at Yale Wright Laboratory for th
DUNE
detectors, which is an experiment that will enable the study of the matter-antimatter imbalance in the Universe and determine the ordering of neutrino mass states. Heeger is co-Principal Investigator of CUORE, along with Reina Maruyama. Since 2021, he has also served as a co-spokesperson for the CUPID experiment, the successor to CUORE. From 2015 to 2024, Heeger was the PI and spokesperson of the PROSPECT experiment, which aims to make a precision measurement of reactor antineutrinos and search for

sterile neutrino Sterile neutrinos (or inert neutrinos) are hypothetical particles (neutral leptons – neutrinos) that interact only via gravity and not via any of the other fundamental interactions of the Standard Model. The term ''sterile neutrino'' is used to ...

s at very short baselines. As a graduate student, Heeger worked on the

, where his dissertation on a measurement of the ⁸B

solar neutrino flux Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

was awarded the 2003 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics by the

Honors and awards

Heeger’s research work has been recognized with numerous awards. For his thesis work he was awarded the 2003 APS Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics. In 2008 he received Outstanding Junior Investigator awards from DOE Nuclear Physics for the investigation of neutrino properties with bolometric detectors and from DOE High Energy Physics for the measurement of the neutrino mixing angle theta13 at Daya Bay. Heeger was awarded an

Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

in 2009 and a UW Romnes Faculty Fellowship in 2011. He was named a Kavli Fellow in 2012. In 2013, he was named an American Physical Society (APS) fellow, nominated by the Division of Nuclear Physics (DNP) "for his contributions to the highest impact experiments in neutrino physics, especially for the major roles he played in the Daya Bay and KamLAND experiments''"''. Heeger shared the 2016

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture capit ...

as a member of three collaborations: SNO, KamLAND, and Daya Bay.

Selected publications

A list of selected publications can be found o
INSPIRE-HEP

Personal life

Heeger married experimental physicist, Reina Maruyama, in 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heeger, Karsten 21st-century American physicists Alumni of the University of Oxford University of Washington alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Yale University faculty Living people Fellows of the American Physical Society Year of birth missing (living people)