An-Najah University Honored with 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Physics
An-Najah National University has achieved a major scientific milestone by winning the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award, granted by the Breakthrough Foundation, honors physicists involved in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider experiments, specifically ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, and LHCb for their groundbreaking contributions.
An-Najah’s team, led by Dr. Ahmed Bassalat from the Department of Physics, has played a vital role in the ATLAS experiment since 2016, particularly in developing the Inner Tracker (ITK) a key component of the detector’s future upgrades.
Dr. Stéphane Willocq, official ATLAS spokesperson, praised the collective effort behind the achievement, calling it a reflection of global collaboration. Dr. Bassalat emphasized the award’s significance in highlighting the team's impact and positioning An-Najah among the world’s leading universities.
The ATLAS experiment, one of the largest scientific instruments ever built, has contributed to major discoveries such as the Higgs boson and continues to explore fundamental questions about matter, energy, and the universe.
The names of the An-Najah University scientists involved in the project can be found at the link below:
