Professor Elena Aprile elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Elena Aprile has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together, as expressed in our charter, “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”

Professor Aprile has led a more than 15 year effort to detect Dark Matter.  She has pioneered the use of liquid xenon detectors for this purpose and led a series of ever-more-sensitive experiments looking for Dark Matter:  XENON10 (15kg), XENON100 (161kg), XENON1T (3200kg) and the most recent version XENONnT (8400kg), which is nearing completion.  XENON1T has produced the world’s most stringent bound on the WIMP-nucleon cross-section.

Professor Aprile and her experiment were the subject of a recent NY Times article.