Wright Lab postdoctoral associate Tyler Johnson was awarded the 2025 Springer Thesis Prize.
Johnson’s award-winning thesis from his Ph.D. at Duke University is “The First Indication of Neutrino-Induced Nuclear Fission” (advisor: Phil Barbeau). The thesis will be published in a book series called “Springer Theses”.
The series “Springer Theses” brings together a selection of the very best Ph.D. theses from around the world and across the physical sciences. The work reported in the thesis must represent a significant scientific advance.
Johnson’s thesis reports the findings from several thousand hours of data that were collected by the NuThor neutrino-induced nuclear fission detector installed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tenessee over the course of three science runs. The thesis reports a comprehensive account of the experiment from early concepts to a full-fledged analysis. A statistical analysis of the collected Science Run 2 data results in a 2.4σ rejection of the null hypothesis.
Johnson said, “I’m honored that my thesis was selected for the Springer Thesis Prize. It couldn’t have happened without the support of my Ph.D. mentor Phil Barbeau and the COHERENT collaboration.”
Johnson continued, “I hope the work highlights the spirit of saying ‘why not?’ and pursuing fun, strange problems in physics.”
Johnson currently works at Wright Lab with professor Reina Maruyama’s group on the RAY experiment, which is contributing to the search for axion dark matter.