Elisabetta Barberio receives honour for international collaboration

Dark Matter Centre Director Professor Elisabetta Barberio has been awarded the Italian Bilateral Scientific Cooperation Award by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

This award recognises Professor Barberio’s distinguished service to science and international collaboration, in particular the impact of her leadership of the SABRE South experiment and development of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL). It also recognises her long-standing collaboration with Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN).

It was presented in Naples on Friday by the Italian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Collaboration, Edmondo Cirielli, and was also attended by Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani and Minister of University and Scientific Research Anna Maria Bernini.

Professor Barberio said she was honoured to receive the award in recognition of her commitment to fostering collaboration between scientists across the globe.

"I am honoured to receive the Italian Bilateral Scientific Cooperation Award — a recognition of the power of international collaboration through SABRE and SUPL. I am grateful to all my colleagues in Italy and Australia who make this shared journey possible.

“International collaboration is at the heart of SABRE, the first dual-hemisphere dark matter experiment, with detectors at Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy and at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory.

“By working closely with our partners in Italy and all around the world, we have a greater capacity to explore some of the great questions of the universe, and develop the global scientific leaders of the future.”

Professor Barberio works closely with researchers and senior leaders at the INFN towards the development of the SABRE South experiment that will test claimed dark matter signals which emerged from Italy’s DAMA/LIBRA collaboration.

The SABRE South dark matter experiment is expected to start taking data in SUPL – the first deep underground laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere - in early 2026.