Panofsky Prize: Observing the Tau Neutrino

Since the discovery of the Tau lepton in the 1970's it's neutrino partner was predicted to exist. In the subsequent decades much indirect evidence for it's existence was amassed. In the 1990's the DONuT experiment was conceived and designed to directly observe tau neutrino interactions with matter. In 2000 evidence for the first direct observation of the tau neutrino was published using the emulsion technique which had been developed for observing short lived particles. This talk will concentrate on the role of Nu_taus in oscillation experiments and prospects for future observations.