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Congratulations to Dr. Zihao Xu
Dr. Zihao Xu successfully defended his thesis on “Search for Dark Matter with the XENONnT Experiment: Knowns and Unknowns” on December 19th, 2025.
Director of the Italian Academy (2025)
Prof. Aprile was named the Director of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. “She has ambitions to develop new directions for the Academy, especially in the interdisciplinary scholarship with the sciences…“
ICFA Instrumentation Award (2025)
Awarded for groundbreaking contributions and leadership in the development of the first fully mature dual-phase liquid xenon TPC with a ton-scale target for the XENON experiment, which is making important advances in ultra rare-event searches.
XENON’s experimental triumph: No dark matter, but the best “null result” in history
News article by BigThink in 2022, on the record lower limit set by XENON!
Julius Wess Award (2022)
Presented to the “renowned astroparticle physicist Elena Aprile, Professor of Physics at Columbia University, New York […] in recognition of her many years of pioneering scientific achievements in the field of the search for dark matter, in particular the development of highly sensitive detectors.
Premio E. Fermi award (2021)
Awarded “to Elena Aprile, for her pioneering research on the properties of liquid xenon for radiation detection and her contribution to the search for dark matter.” Also awarded to Patrizia Caraveo.
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
Dr. Aprile was inducted to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Will Coronavirus Freeze the Search for Dark Matter?
New York Times interview with Prof. Aprile about the potential threats of the COVID-19 pandemic on experimental funding for dark matter search.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Aprile was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.
Seeking Dark Matter, They Detected Another Mystery
New York Times article about the potential explanations of an excess in electronic recoil events detected by XENON1T in 2020.
Dark matter hunt yields unexplained signal
BBC article about the potential explanations of an excess in electronic recoil events detected by XENON1T in 2020.
Lancelot M. Berkeley Astronomy Prize (2019)
Awarded “for her leadership of the XENON project and its groundbreaking search for the particle that is thought to make up the dark matter in the halo of the Milky Way Galaxy. “
WOWWoman Interview
Prof. Aprile interviewed by “WOW Woman” shortly after receiving the American Astronomical Society’s Lancelot M. Berkeley prize in 2019.
First Person: Elena Aprile
Prof. Aprile interview by American Scientist magazine in 2018.
Doctorate "Honoris Causa"
Dr. Aprile was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Stockholm University in 2017.
Dal Gran Sasso alla materia oscura
2015 article from the Italian news outlet La Republica, about XENON’s mission.
Let There Be Light
2009 feature by Wired magazine, on searching for Dark Matter with XENON.
TG5 Report on XENON
Italian feature about the XENON experiment, with an interview with Prof. Aprile.
Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana
Dr. Aprile was bestowed the rank of “Officer” of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2005. It is the seniormost honorary order of the Republic, awarded for “merit acquired by the nation” in one’s field of activity and for long and conspicuous service in civilian and military careers.
New York Times Interview on Sexism in Academia (1994)
Prof. Aprile interviewed by the New York Times shortly before being tenured as an associate professor at Columbia University. The article titled “Persistent Sexism in American Education; Why so Few Women Physicists?” was focused on investigating sexism in academia, specifically the sciences.
