On Tuesday, 11 October 2016, the American Physical Society (APS) announced the award of the 2017 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics to Michel Della Negra (Imperial College London and, previously, CERN), Peter Jenni (Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg and, previously, CERN), and Tejinder Virdee (Imperial College London) “for distinguished leadership in the conception, design, and construction of the ATLAS and CMS detectors, which were instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs boson.”

The prize, named after SLAC’s founding director Wolfgang “Pief” Panofsky, is presented annually to recognize and encourage outstanding achievements in experimental particle physics.

On the same occasion, the 2017 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics was awarded to Sally Dawson (Brookhaven National Laboratory), John F. Gunion (University of California, Davis), Howard E. Haber (University of California, Santa Cruz), and Gordon L. Kane (University of Michigan) “for instrumental contributions to the theory of the properties, reactions, and signatures of the Higgs boson.”

“Each year, the American Physical Society recognises leading physicists through a variety of prizes and awards,” said APS President Dr Homer Neal. "We are proud to honour a spectrum of recipients, including outstanding early-career researchers, exceptional communicators and educators, and accomplished theorists and experimentalists working in every major field of physics.”

“CERN is very proud that the prestigious Panofsky Prize has been awarded to three of the early leaders of the ATLAS and CMS experiments. We also greatly appreciate the recognition of the important theoretical work on the Higgs boson phenomenology by four distinguished theoretical physicists. We are grateful to the APS for highlighting excellent scientific work related directly or indirectly to the LHC project, to which our US colleagues have contributed in a very significant way.” said CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti.