Scientist Achievement

ICTP emeritus scientist Alexei Smirnov was recently appointed as a Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Physics. He first joined ICTP in 1992 as a staff-associate, and in 1997 became a full-time staff member.

Smirnov’s research has been groundbreaking in the field of particle physics. His discovery of neutrino oscillations confirmed that neutrinos, previously thought to be massless, do in fact have mass. He is a founder of the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) effect, a prediction of how neutrinos are influenced by matter.

Smirnov is one of the leading researchers in neutrino physics. His awards include the 2008 J.J. Sakurai Prize by the American Physics Society, the 2016 Albert Einstein Medal by the Albert Einstein Society in Bern, Switzerland, and the Alexander von Humboldt research award in 2004. His appointment to Distinguished Professor by KIAS is the most recent recognition of his pioneering work in particle physics.