Henric Krawczynski, the Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor in Physics in Arts & Sciences and department chair at Washington University in St. Louis, has won the 2026 Bruno Rossi Prize, the most prestigious prize from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society. The prize was awarded for Krawczynski's "pioneering contributions to the theory, instrumentation and scientific interpretation of X-ray polarimetry," according to the prize announcement.
The society cited Krawczynski's ongoing work as principal investigator of XL-Calibur, a 12-meter-long X-ray telescope built and operated by an international collaboration of 50 scientists from Sweden, Japan and the United States. XL-Calibur was flown on a stratospheric balloon flight from Sweden to Canada in July 2024. The flight allowed Krawczynski's team to measure the polarization of the hard (particularly energetic) X-rays from the Crab supernova remnant and from the black hole Cygnus X-1 with unprecedented accuracy.
