A pair of CEET alumni and one faculty member are among the recipients of one of science’s most prestigious honors.
Mechanical Engineering Professor Nick Pohlman and alumni Guanrong (Greg) Luo and Andrew Behnke were recognized as contributors to the Muon g-2 collaboration, which recently received the 2026 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
The prize went to Muon g-2 collaborations at CERN in Europe, Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in nearby Batavia. It comes with $3 million and recognizes major advances in understanding the behavior of muons, particles that could help unlock new discoveries about the universe.
One of the highest honors in physics, the prize is distributed evenly among 400 contributors, meaning each individual receives $7,500 for their respective roles. Two other NIU professors, in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ physics department, and five of their former students likewise shared in the prize.
The contributions by Pohlman, Luo and Behnke began at NIU over a decade ago and provides a belated spotlight to engineering’s impact, which so often occurs—and remains—behind the scenes.
“It’s incredibly exciting to see the Muon g‑2 project earn a Breakthrough Prize after all these years,” Luo said. While pursuing his master’s degree in mechanical engineering, which he attained in 2015, Luo conducted thermal simulations on a muon-capturing device to assess heat-dissipation designs needed for safe and reliable operation in a vacuum environment.
Now a Manager of Data Engineering at CIBC, one of Canada’s “big five” banks, Luo as a mechanical engineering student conducted thermal analyses for a muon-capturing device used in the experiment.
“I’m proud to have played even a small part in something that became such a milestone for fundamental physics,” Luo said.
Behnke, meanwhile, designed and built a testing system that helped verify the performance of detector components used by researchers. Now an analysis engineer at an engineering services company, Behnke was surprised to learn of the Breakthrough Prize.
“I didn’t really expect to be revisiting this project in this way almost 10 years after the fact,” he said.
Both students worked under Pohlman, whose collaborations with Fermilab date back for many years. He’s been integral to helping many CEET students gain experience at Fermilab as they tackle complex engineering challenges connected to world-class scientific research.
Read the full story in the NIU Newsroom to learn more about the Breakthrough Prize and NIU’s contributions to the Muon g-2 experiment.
