Post-doctoral Associate Stephen Sclafani has been selected for the American Physical Society’s Ceclia Payne-Gaposchkin Doctoral Dissertation Award, which recognizes doctoral thesis research in astrophysics and encourages effective written and oral presentation of research results. 
Steve Sclafani at the South Pole.
Steve Sclafani at the South Pole. Sclafani was cited for performing the first observation of diffuse high-energy neutrinos from our Galaxy using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory's cascade data stream in a novel approach to mitigate high backgrounds and for the effective use of Machine Learning in realizing this observation.
Sclafani joined UMD in 2023, after receiving his doctorate at Drexel University. He works with the UMD particle astrophysics group on the IceCube experiment, a massive cosmic neutrino detector at the South Pole responsible for breakthroughs including the 2024 observation of tau neutrinos and the recent detection of extremely high-energy neutrinos.
Members of the UMD group include Brian Clark, Kara Hoffman, Greg Sullivan, Erik Blaufuss, Michael Larson, Rachel Procter-Murphy, Aishwarya Vijai, Taylor St Jean, Shannon Gray, Ergis Shaini, Zoe Brunton, Rohan Panchwagh and Santiago Sued.
More information about Sclafani's work can be found on the Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences website: https://drexel.edu/coas/news-events/news/2025/March/physics-alum-awarded-for-icecube-research/
Photos courtesy of Steve Sclafani
Steve Sclafani discusses his work.