By combining the work of two research teams, ATLAS and CMS, CERN has announced the discovery of a new boson with a mass between 125-126 GeV/c2 at a confidence level that leaves the chance of random events faking the discovery at less than 1 in 10 million. Penn professors Brig Williams, Joe Kroll, Elliot Lipeles and Evelyn Thomson and their students have played a large role in the design, construction, and operation of the ATLAS detector as well as contributing to the discovery of the new particle, widely believed to be the long-sought Higgs boson that gives mass to all the fundamental particles.