best thesis award

Outstanding Dissertation Award

The Outstanding Dissertation Award was established in 1979 by the Graduate School to recognize exceptional work by doctoral students and to encourage the highest levels of scholarship, research, and writing.

The Michael H. Granof Award will be given in 2024 to recognize the University’s top dissertation. The recipient of this year’s award will be selected from one of the three dissertation winners. The Granof Award is considered the top graduate student award. All prizes will be announced in spring of 2024.

Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) chairpersons nominate one doctoral student from their programs for the award. Winners are selected in three categories:

• Area A — Humanities and Fine Arts
• Area B — Social Sciences, Business and Education
• Area C — Mathematics, Engineering, Physical Sciences, and Biological and Life Sciences

A dissertation may be considered in only one competition category. Select the category most appropriate to the topic and methodology of the nominated dissertation.

Professional & Student Awards

Awards Open: November 1, 2023 Awards Close: February 16, 2024 Deadline extended!

If you have questions, email  Brianna Smallman .

Eligibility

To be eligible for the 2024 award, the dissertation must meet one of the following criteria:

• It will be submitted in final form to the Graduate School by April 26, 2024 for a degree to be awarded in May 2024.
• It was submitted for a degree awarded in August 2023 or December 2023.
• It was submitted after April 1, 2023, for a degree awarded in May 2023.

Nominations

The graduate school's online awards system.

Nominees for the award must be submitted through the Graduate School's dedicated online awards system. The application process entails the nominator filling out the application with the necessary details about the nominee.

To successfully complete the online application, please gather the following documents:

• Nomination Letter : A letter from the chairperson of the Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) that succinctly outlines the reasons for selecting the dissertation as the program's nominee.
• The dissertation supervisor
• The graduate adviser
• The department chair
• A committee member
• Dissertation Copy : Include one copy of the complete dissertation, along with the abstract.

Ensure all components are compiled and submitted through the Graduate School's online awards system to facilitate a thorough and efficient nomination process.

The faculty review committees will consider both the methodological and substantive aspects of the dissertations, including the:

• Importance/impact of the subject;
• Originality/creativity of the work;
• Quality of the scholarship;
• Potential for publishing;
• Organization of the dissertation;
• Quality of the writing; and
• Other appropriate factors that denote excellence.

Individuals writing letters of support should be encouraged to keep these criteria in mind as they comment on the significance/major contribution of the dissertation and the particular aspects of the dissertation that distinguish it.

2023 Award Recipients

Will Burg, Ph.D.

Michael H. Granof Award winner

Program: Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dissertation Title: Collective Quantum States in Twist Controlled Graphene Heterostructures

Alex Diamond

Program: Sociology

Dissertation Title: An Uncomfortable Peace: Everyday State Formation in Colombia’s Peace Laboratory Sociology

Augusta Lynn Dell'Omo, Ph.D.

Program: History

Dissertation Title: Saving Apartheid: Transatlantic Whiteness in the U.S.-South African Relationship, 1980-1994

New Technologies with a Twist: Engineering Alumnus Wins Top Dissertation Prize

Graduate School

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Best Dissertation Award Program

What is the best dissertation award program .

Each year the Graduate School recognizes the University's top recent Ph.D. graduates by presenting 'best dissertation' awards.

The award is given in each of four broad areas:

• arts & humanities (including history and philosophy)
• biological and medical sciences
• physical sciences and engineering
• social & behavioral sciences and education

What is the application window?

The 2024 application window will open February 15, 2024. The submission deadline is April 5, 2024 by 5:00pm central time.

Deadline extensions will not be granted; late submissions will not be accepted.

What is the award?

$1,000 honorarium and consideration for nomination to the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award .

How do I apply?

Program Nomination required. Please reach out to your Director of Graduate Studies or Graduate Program Coordinator .

For Program Nomination, log in to the electronic nomination form .

Application Requirements

A single PDF nomination file should include the documents listed below in the following order:

• Nomination Form
• Curriculum Vitae (not to exceed 5 pages), see details below
• DGS Nomination Letter, see details below
• Letter of Recommendation from Dissertation Advisor
• Layman’s Summary (one page), see details below
• Description of dissertation research and its conclusions, see details below

Required PDF title format: Nominee LastName_FirstName_2024BestDissertation

Who Is Eligible to apply?

Current and former students who will have been awarded the Ph.D., or who will have successfully defended and officially submitted their dissertations to the Graduate Student Services & Progress (GSSP) office, between July 1, 2022 and April 5, 2024., will be eligible to be nominated. UMN-Twin Cities and UMN-Duluth graduate programs that offer the Ph.D. may nominate one student.

If you have any questions, please contact the  Graduate Fellowships Office .

APPLICATION MATERIAL INSTRUCTIONS

+ nominee’s curriculum vitae.

• Maximum of 5 pages in length
• Highlight education and employment history
• List honors and publications

+ DGS Nomination Letter

• Describe candidate pool and selection process within program
• Describe nominee’s originality and importance of research
• Describe nominee’s potential for significant contribution to the field
• Describe nominee’s comparative publication record and quality of the journals, and other excellence indicators, such as: discoveries, unique theories, inventions, creative products, patens, publications, book publication offers, job offers, professional organization honors, etc.

+ Nominee’s Layman’s Summary

• Maximum of one page, should be double spaced
• Include a section on the significance of the research and, if available, the URL of the nominee’s website

+ Letter of Recommendation from Dissertation Advisor

• Recommended length is 2-3 pages
• Expectation of content: letter should evaluate the significance and quality of the nominee's dissertation work

+ Description of dissertation research and its conclusions

• Written by the nominee
• 10 pages maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font
• Each page should contain nominee’s name and page number
• Appendices containing nontextual material, such as charts or tables, may be included in addition to the 10 pages (no page limit for appendices)

+ Further Information

The UMN review committee may ask for a copy of the dissertation in making final decisions.

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UVA Math PhD Weinan Zhang Wins 2023 ICCM Best Thesis Gold Prize

2023 UVA math PhD Weinan Zhang, now a postdoc at the University of Hong Kong, will be awarded a Gold Prize for the 2023 ICCM Best Thesis Award, established by S.-T. Yau. The award, which comes with a prize of 50,000 RMB, recognizes the best PhD thesis in mathematics by a student of Chinese descent.

IEEE AESS Robert T. Hill Best Dissertation Award

Award/recognition menu.

To recognize candidates that have recently received a Ph.D. degree and have written an outstanding Ph.D. dissertation in the Field of Interest of the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. Its purpose is to grant international recognition for the most outstanding Ph.D. dissertation by an AESS member.

Historical Background

Robert (Bob) Tyler Hill (1935 – 2014) was an electrical engineer and Life Fellow of the IEEE who pioneered the development of ship-borne phased array radar systems and championed international cooperation between radar engineers. After his retirement, Bob worked with great enthusiasm, energy and success as an educator and proponent of the radar art, showing particular dedication to nurturing and inspiring the next generation of young engineers. This AESS award was dedicated to rising young engineers was established and named after Robert Tyler Hill to honor his remarkable legacy in technical excellence, international collaboration, and professional education.

$1,000 USD honorarium and a plaque.

In the case of financial hardship, up to $1,500 in travel expenses can be authorized by the AES Society President for the recipient to attend the selected IEEE/AESS conference’s award ceremony.

Funded by the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society

At a convenient IEEE AESS conference

Noteworthy contributions in the AESS Field of Interest.

Must be a graduate of an accredited university which requires a dissertation to receive a Ph.D. degree. Must be an AESS member or student member in good standing at the time of nomination. Preferentially, the nominee should have been awarded the Ph.D. degree in the last 24 months prior to the nomination. The Ph.D. dissertation has to be deemed to have made a particularly noteworthy contribution in the AESS Field of Interest. The dissertation must be written in English. Translation from another language to English is allowed.

David Luong

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation “Quantum Radar Signal Processing"

Leonardo M. Millefiori

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation “Machine Learning and Data Fusion Methods for Enhanced Maritime Surveillance.

Joe Khalife

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation “Precise navigation with cellular signals: Receiver design, differential and non-differential frameworks, and performance analysis"

Francesca Filippini

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation: “Multichannel Passive Radar Systems: Signal Processing Techniques and Design Strategies"

Philipp Markiton

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation: "Passive Radar on Moving Platforms Exploiting DVB-T Transmitters of Opportunity"

Patrick McCormick

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation: “Design and Optimization of Physical Waveform-Diverse and Spatially-Diverse Radar Emissions"  

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation: “Topics in MIMO Radars: Sparse Sensing and Spectrum Sharing"

Shunqiao Sun

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation: “MIMO Radars with Sparse Sensing"

Bosung Kang

In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation: “Robust Covariance Matrix Estimation for Radar Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP)"

Senior Thesis Awards

The Allen School presents the Best Senior Thesis Award annually. The purpose of the award is to recognize the honors student(s) who writes the most outstanding senior thesis in a given year.

• Nomination Letter . The faculty member sponsoring the research project provides a nomination letter describing the student's research contribution. The nomination letter should address the criteria listed below.
• Submission Deadline. The nomination letter and senior thesis must be submitted to the undergraduate advisers on or before the last day of instruction in Spring quarter (for spring 2022, June 3). Submissions after the deadline will not be considered.
• Selection Committee . The selection of the best senior thesis will be done by a committee of two faculty members and one undergraduate adviser according to the criteria below.
• Announcement of the Award. The announcement of the Best Senior Thesis Award will take place at the departmental graduation ceremony on graduation day.

The selection of the best senior thesis is based on the originality, impact, and written quality of the work. Work that has been submitted to and/or accepted at workshops, conferences, or journals will be considered more favorably. Work that is primarily attributed to the student's own initiative will be considered more favorably. Finally, the quality of the written document in terms of its organization, polish, and use of language will be considered.

Past Winners

2023 Best Senior Thesis Award

• Winner: The Art of Algorithm and Knowledge in the Era of Extreme-Scale Neural Models Ximing Lu, supervised by Yejin Choi
• Runner-up: Scaling Embodied Artificial Intelligence: Massive 3D Simulations to Real-World Distributional Robustness Matt Deitkie, supervised by Ali Farhadi

Winner, 2022 Best Senior Thesis Award Flipping the Script: Co-Designing Systems to Support Blind and Low Vision Audio Description Scriptwriters Lucy Jiang, supervised by Richard Ladner

Winners, 2021 Best Senior Thesis Award

• Assessing the Relationship Between Routine and Schizophrenia Symptoms with Passively Sensed Measures of Behavioral Stability Joy He-Yueya, supervised by Tim Althoff
• Design Principles for Mobile and Wearable Health Technologies Parker Ruth, supervised by Shwetak Patel

Winner, 2020 Best Senior Thesis Award Understanding and Designing for Security and Privacy in Multi-User AR Interactions Kimberly Ruth, supervised by Franziska Roesner & Yoshi Kohno

Winner, 2019 Best Senior Thesis Award Implicit Linguistic Knowledge of Neural Natural Language Processing Models Nelson Liu, supervised by Noah Smith

Winner, 2018 Best Senior Thesis Award A Crash-Safe Key-Value Store Using Chained Copy-on-Write B-trees Bruno Castro-Karney, supervised by Xi Wang

Winner, 2017 Best Senior Thesis Award The Methods of Interlacing Polynomials Kuikui Liu, supervised by Shayan Oveis Gharan

Winner, 2017 Best Senior Thesis Award Respeak: A Voice-based, Crowd-powered, and Accessible Speech Transcription System Pooja Sethi, supervised by Richard Anderson

Winner, 2016 Best Senior Thesis Award Navigating a 2D Virtual World Using Direct Brain Stimulation Darby Losey, supervised by Rajesh Rao

Winner, 2015 Best Senior Thesis Award Probability Type Inference for Flexible Approximate Programming Brett Boston, supervised by Dan Grossman

Winner, 2014 Best Senior Thesis Award DCDN: Distributed Content Delivery for the Modern Web Nick Martindell, supervised by Tom Anderson & Arvind Krishnamurthy

Winner, 2013 Best Senior Thesis Award An API For Touch-Free Interfaces For Andriod Devices Leeran Raphaely, supervised by Gaetano Borriello

Winner, 2012 Best Senior Thesis Award The Elan Programming Language for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays Elliott Brossard, supervised by Carl Ebeling

Winner, 2011 Best Senior Thesis Award LIFEGUARD: Locating Internet Failure Events and Generating Usable Alternate Routes Dynamically Robert Colin Scott, supervised by Tom Anderson

Winner, 2010 Best Senior Thesis Award Applications of the IP Timestamp Option to Internet Measurement Justine Sherry, supervised by Tom Anderson

Winner, 2009 Best Senior Thesis Award Real-Time Classification of Everyday Fitness Activities on Windows Mobile Alireza Bagheri Garakani, supervised by James Fogarty

Winner, 2008 Best Senior Thesis Award Maintaining Intelligibility of ASL Video in the Presence of Data Loss Sam Whittle, supervised by Richard Ladner

Winner, 2007 Best Senior Thesis Award Context-Based Arithmetic Coding for the DCT: Achieving high compression rates with block transforms and simple context modeling Kyle Littlefield, supervised by Richard Ladner

Winner, 2006 Best Senior Thesis Award Feature-Based Classification of the Mouse Eye Images Jenny Yuen, supervised by Linda Shapiro

Winner, 2005 Best Senior Thesis Award Text Segmentation and Grouping for Tactile Graphics Matthew Renzelmann, supervised by Richard Ladner

All CSE honors theses, including the past winners of the Best Senior Thesis Award, are published online as part of the Undergraduate Thesis Archive .

The Effective Thesis Exceptional Research Award

The 2022 exceptional research award winners have been announced, effective thesis exceptional research award.

This award has been established to encourage and recognize promising research by students that has the potential to significantly improve the world. 

Submit your thesis, dissertation, or capstone to the Effective Thesis Exceptional Research Award competition today to see your work recognised by an international programme, judged by professional academics from the world’s top universities, and join a network of fellow prospective researchers delivering top research in your chosen field.

Introduction

The Exceptional Research Award is awarded annually for the best thesis, dissertation or capstone paper that has great potential to significantly improve the world. In awarding this prize we think of Norman E. Borlaug. In 1937, he was a young student of forestry. One day he attended a lecture that ended with the claim that work on disease-resistant crops could “go further than has ever been possible to eradicate the miseries of hunger and starvation from this earth,” and inspired him to switch over into plant pathology to address the important problem of food security. There, his work on disease-resistant wheat varieties kicked off a wave of agricultural improvements called the ‘Green Revolution’. These improvements are estimated to have saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people who would otherwise have died from starvation. Dr. Borlaug’s story shows the incredible potential that well-targeted research has to change the world.

By awarding this prize, Effective Thesis aims to recognise and encourage ambitious students who aim to utilise the power of well-targeted research to significantly improve the world.

The award has two tiers – undergraduate and graduate. Submissions are judged by a panel of professional academics from the world’s top universities. The winning submissions each year will receive $1000 and will be featured on the Effective Thesis website. Aside from the main prize, several commendation prizes will be awarded and receive $100. The number of awards will depend on the quality of the applications we receive.

Eligibility

Submissions can consist of theses, dissertations, or capstone papers at the undergraduate or graduate level. Other substantive work forming part of a graduation semester may also be considered. To be eligible, submissions must have been produced in the academic year 2021 – 2022 and relate to one or multiple research directions prioritised by Effective Thesis. See the list of research directions below or see here for more information.

• Biosecurity and risks from engineered pathogens
• Artificial Intelligence Safety
• Other Global Catastrophic and Existential Risks
• Animal welfare and sentience
• Understanding progress and change
• Global health and wellbeing
• Understanding and improving decision-making processes
• Global priorities research

For a better understanding of what topics and research questions might fit these research directions and to get help in choosing your topic accordingly, you can take a look at our topic inspiration page and apply for our coaching . We also provide some additional help with choosing your supervisor and notifying you about relevant research-related opportunities .

We accept entries from all countries. All entries have to be submitted in English, however, they may be translated if not originally written in English. We would encourage students to not spend excessive time on translation as translated works will not be judged harshly on matters of grammar and style.

Selection Criteria and Process

To succeed, your research must be of high quality, ideally bringing a novel contribution, and make as much progress as possible towards solving some problem described within our prioritised research directions. That being said, we place emphasis on how well the research questions were chosen and how well the work was done rather than the direct measurable impact of the written work. We aim to reward good work rather than good results, therefore we also welcome “failed attempts” (e.g. negative results, etc..), as long as they have been carefully conducted.

Submissions will be pre-screened for relevance and eligibility by our internal team and then scored in quality, novelty and progress towards solving some problem described in our prioritised research directions through a double blind review process. Reviews will be conducted by relevant researchers from our network of domain experts.

To see examples of some of the work we consider promising, see our finished theses page.

Application

Submission Deadline: September 1st, 2022

Entries have to be submitted no later than September 1st 2022. Your submission should include the following:

• A cover page that includes your name and contact details, the title of the work which you are submitting, the prioritised research direction(s) it relates to, your study programme, the date on which the work was accepted in this programme, and the name of the university.
• A 300-word maximum description of why you believe your research could contribute to significantly improving the world.
• The thesis, dissertation or capstone paper you wish to submit. For bachelor’s and master’s level you can submit your whole thesis, while for the PhD level please submit just one chapter of your dissertation or other relevant research piece. Typical submissions are in the range of 5000-15000 words in length, but we may make exceptions.

Please message [email protected] for any inquiries about the award.

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Best thesis award

• Thombare, Varsha (Recipient)
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Prize : Prize (including medals and awards)

Description

2024 Thesis Award Winners

April 25, 2024

Congratulations to our 2024 Thesis Award Winners! Following last week’s energetic lobby pin-ups, the fifth-year students and faculty nominated 12 final projects to be reviewed by an esteemed jury including Steven Harper, Lauren Kogod, Erika Malanoski, and Frank Weiner. The jury was impressed by the range of work and the quality of architectural research and representation. Ultimately, four students were invited to present their thesis projects to the jury, faculty, and fellow students. Thoughtful deliberation and conversation determined the following awards sponsored by the Hanbury Prize, Hanbury Architecture + Design: Excellence in Architecture Undergraduate Thesis, First Place: Sakshi Pitre’s “On Dialogue between Utopia and Pragmatism: Rethinking contextual sentience, identity, culture and social equity in the Global South as a counter to the homogenous post-modern urban fabric” Excellence in Architecture Undergraduate Thesis, Second Place: Clayton Greer’s “The Norfolk Performing Arts Center: Redefining the Urban Waterfront Typology” Excellence in Architecture Undergraduate Thesis, Third Place: Nathan Brannon’s “Redefining the Margins of American Belonging: An Exploration in Flexible Dwelling for Asylum Seekers” Excellence in Architecture Undergraduate Thesis Research Award: Sara Mohamed’s, “A Documentation on Sudanese Domestic Architecture”. The other eight finalists were Alonzo Colon, Diana Fernandez-Borunda, Gray Kutrieb, Isabel Parkins, Jennie Wells, Nathan Swords, Sophia Chaudhry, and Tucker Rossi. Congratulations to all of our thesis students on a strong year. We are proud of your collective contribution to contemporary architectural discourse. Thank you to our jury for the time and care they took to review the work, and to Hanbury Architecture + Design for supporting our students through the Hanbury Prize.

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• Militaire geschiedenis (master)
• Museum Studies (duale master)
• Music Studies (master)
• Music Studies (premaster)
• Muziekwetenschap (bachelor)
• Natuurkunde en sterrenkunde (bachelor, joint degree)
• Nederlands als tweede taal en meertaligheid (duale master)
• Nederlands als tweede taal en meertaligheid (schakelprogramma)
• Nederlands, Educatie en communicatie (master)
• Nederlands, Educatie en communicatie (schakelprogramma)
• Nederlandse taal en cultuur (bachelor)
• Nederlandse taal en cultuur (master)
• New Media and Digital Culture (master)
• Nieuwgriekse taal en cultuur (bachelor)
• Onderwijswetenschappen (bachelor)
• Onderwijswetenschappen (master)
• Onderwijswetenschappen (schakelprogramma)
• (Forensische) Orthopedagogiek (schakelprogramma)
• Oudheidwetenschappen (bachelor)
• P&A: Advanced Matter and Energy Physics (master, joint degree)
• P&A: Astronomy and Astrophysics (master, joint degree)
• P&A: Biophysics and Biophotonics (master, joint degree)
• P&A: General Physics and Astronomy (master, joint degree)
• P&A: GRAPPA - Gravitation, Astro-, and Particle Physics (master, joint degree)
• P&A: Science for Energy and Sustainability (master, joint degree)
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Thesis awards

A thesis prize rewards the author of the best thesis on a certain topic with money, publication or a work placement, etc. Thesis prizes are usually awarded to encourage research on a certain topic. 

General thesis prizes: a selection

A selection of the thesis prizes awarded:

• The UvA Thesis Prize External link The UvA Thesis Prize is a UvA-wide prize.
• The Unilever Thesis Prize External link
• The SER Thesis Prize External link , for theses about socio-economic topics or other topics relevant for the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (Sociaal-Economische Raad) is active.
• The ‘reading promotion’ thesis prize External link This prize, which is worth €1,000, is awarded to the author of the best graduation thesis on the promotion of reading skills every two years. A number of research themes are possible: reading culture, reading motivation and behaviour, reading comprehension, reader profiles, the social function of reading, digital reading, reading in relation to other media, the role of reading in literature education and culture education and also research on good practices or success factors when promoting reading.
• The thesis prize for the trade union movement External link This prize is awarded to (upcoming) graduates of Master’s programmes at Dutch universities that have written theses about topics relevant to the field of the trade union movement or that relate to the role of the trade union movement.

See the full overview of thesis prizes External link .

Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research”

Award, eligibility and its privileges.

The IAFSS Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” recognises the best research thesis at PhD and Masters levels, in all the fields related to fire safety science and engineering. There are three such Awards for the three IAFSS regions, Europe and Africa, Americas, as well as Asia and Oceania.

To be eligible for nomination, the nominee’s thesis must have been officially submitted to the university granting the degree for examination and nominated for the Award by the nominee’s supervisor, as described below.

Each recipient must deliver, at the Symposium, a paper drawn from his/her thesis. While not required, the recipient will be strongly encouraged to prepare a paper, as per submission guidelines of the Symposium, based on the material included in the thesis and not published in the Symposium or other peer reviewed archival publication. The Award consists of a plaque, a grant of US $2,000 to cover travel and sustenance related to the recipient’s attendance at the Symposium and free registration for the Symposium.

Nomination Process

The following documents need to be submitted:

• A letter of recommendation by the nominee’s supervisor not to exceed 2 pages;
• A pdf copy of the thesis (preferably in English; if not available, in its original language);
• An abstract of the thesis in English (no longer than three pages);
• A list of publications. The list should comprise journal articles (including those that have been submitted for publication, whether accepted or not), and conference publications (indicating the form of review; no review, by Abstract, by full paper). Publications in preparation or draft should not be listed;
• Pdf preprints or reprints of up to three best papers derived from the nominee’s thesis (conference papers can be included) can be submitted but are not compulsory.
• If the thesis is not written in English, at least one paper in English shall be submitted.
• Submission subject to confidentiality requirements should be accompanied by an explanation from the supervisor indicating which sections of the thesis cannot be made public or submitted for review. The requirement for the recipient to deliver a presentation at the 13 th Symposium cannot be waived; therefore, this explanation has to include a clear indication of which sections will be presented at the Symposium.

Selection Considerations

Selection of the awardees will be driven by four criteria: the pertinence, quality, significance, and impact of the work. Only one thesis can be submitted for award from a given University or Institution. When more than one thesis is of sufficient quality for submission for the Award, a preliminary selection must be carried out locally and the nominee’s supervisor needs to explicitly describe in the letter of recommendation the local selection process. If more than one thesis is submitted by a single institution the nominators will be asked to withdraw the submissions voluntarily and explain the reasoning behind the selection. If more than one thesis remains by the submission date then none of the submissions from that institution will be considered.

The four criteria used to select the best thesis include:

• Pertinence : Is the thesis’ subject matter within the scope of the field of fire science and/or engineering?
• Quality : Are the methodologies applied in the thesis sound and correct? Is the thesis well written?
• Significance : Do the results of the thesis add to our present knowledge? Are the results new, accurate, useful and important?
• Impact : Do the results of the thesis have a broad impact in the fields of fire science and/or engineering?

Selection Bod y

The recipients of the IAFSS Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” will be selected by the IAFSS Awards Committee.

Past Recipients

IAFSS Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” was first presented at the 8th IAFSS Symposium at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2005. Its past recipients are listed below:

• (Europe and Africa) Li Ma for the thesis, “ Large-eddy simulation of purely buoyant diffusion flames ” conferred by the Aix-Marseille University, advised by Dr. Fatiha Nmira from Electricité de France (EDF) and Jean-Louis Consalvi from Aix-Marseille University
• (Americas) Parham Dehghani for the thesis, “ Burning Emulations of Condensed Phase Fuels Aboard the International Space Station ” conferred by the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, advised by Prof. Peter Sunderland and Prof. James Quintiere
• (Asia and Oceania) Xiepeng Sun for the thesis “ Experimental and Theoretical Study on the Ejected Facade Flame Behavior from Compartment Fires under Different Ventilation Conditions” conferred by the University of Science and Technology of China, advised jointly by Prof. Longhua Hu at USTC and Prof. Bart Merci at Ghent University
• (Europe and Africa) Eric V. Mueller for the thesis, “ Examination of the underlying physics in a detailed wildland fire behavior model through field-scale experimentation ” conferred by the University of Edinburgh, UK, advised by Dr. Rory Hadden and Prof. Albert Simeoni
• (Americas) Joshua D. Swann for the thesis, “ A comprehensive characterization of pyrolysis and combustion of intumescent and charring polymers using two-dimensional modeling: a relationship between thermal transport and the physical structure of the intumescent char ” conferred by the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, advised by Prof. Stanislav Stoliarov
• (Asia and Oceania) Yongzheng Yao for the thesis “ Fire Behaviors and smoke transportation law of tunnel fires under confined portal boundaries ” conferred by the University of Science and Technology of China, in collaboration with RISE Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), advised by Prof. Heping Zhang and A/Prof.Xudong Cheng at USTC and Prof. Haukur Ingason and Dr. Ying Zhen Li at RISE

2021 Honorable mentions:

• James L. Urban for the thesis “ Spot ignition of natural fuels by hot metal particles ” conferred by the University of California, Berkeley, USA, advised by Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Pello
• Francesco Restuccia for the thesis  “Self-heating ignition of natural reactive porous media ” conferred by Imperial College, London, UK, advised by Prof. Guillermo Rein
• (Europe and Africa) Cristian Maluk for the thesis,  “Development and Application of a Novel Test Method for Studying the Fire Behaviour of CFRP Prestressed Concrete Structural Element” c onferred by the University of Edinburgh, UK
• (Americas) Ali Tohidi for the thesis,  “Experimental and Numerical Modeling of Wildfire Spread via Fire Spotting” c onferred by Clemson University, USA
• (Asia and Oceania) Zihe Gao for the thesis  “Studies on Characteristics of Confined Fire Plumes and Mechanism of Natural Smoke Exhaust by Shaft in Tunnel Fires”  conferred by the University of Science and Technology of China in collaboration with Ghent University, Belgium
• (Europe and Africa) Dr Thomas Gernay, for the thesis titled “A multiaxial constitutive model for concrete in the fire situation including transient creep and cooling down phases,” Université de Liège, Belgium (2012)
• (Americas) Dr Kristopher James Overholt, for the thesis titled “Forward and Inverse Modeling of Fire Physics Towards Fire Scene Reconstructions,” The University of Texas at Austin, USA (2013)
• (Asia and Oceania) Dr Chao Zhang for the thesis titled “Reliability of Steel Columns Protected by Intumescent Coatings Subjected to Natural Fires,” Tongji University, China (2012)

2014 Honorable Mentions:

• Dr John Gales, for the thesis titled “Unbonded Post Tensioned Concrete Structures in Fire,” University of Edinburgh, UK (2013)
• Dr Mélanie Rochoux for the thesis titled “Towards a more comprehensive monitoring of wildfire spread Contributions of model evaluation and data assimilation strategies (Vers une meilleure prévision de la propagation d’incendies de forêt: Evaluation de modèles et Assimilation de données),” CNRS et École Centrale Paris, France (2014)
• Dr Steven Verstockt for the thesis “Multi-modal Video Analysis for Early Fire Detection (Analyse van multimodale video voor vroegtijdige branddetectie),” Universiteit Gent, Belgium (2012).
• (Europe and Africa)  Angus Law, for the thesis titled “The Assessment and Response of Concrete Structures Subject to Fire”, The University of Edinburgh, UK (2010)
• (Americas) Christopher Lautenberger, for the thesis titled “Generalized Pyrolysis Model for Combustible Solids”, University of California, Berkeley, USA (2007)
• (Asia and Oceania) Kai Chen, for the thesis titled “Formation of Toxic Pollutants in the Thermal Decomposition of the Sulfenimide Fungicides”, The University of Newcastle, Australia (2011)
• (Europe and Africa) Markus Knobloch ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, PhD Thesis
• (Americas) Ali S. Rangwala, University of California, San Diego, USA, PhD Thesis
• (Asia and Oceania) Johannes A.W. Dimyadi, The University of Canterbury, NZ, Masters Thesis
• (Europe and Africa) Susan Lamont, The University of Edinburgh, UK, PhD Thesis
• (Americas) Amnon Bar-Ilan, University of California, Berkeley, USA, PhD Thesis
• (Asia and Oceania) Weng Wenguo, Waseda University, Japan, PhD Thesis

Bronwyn has been involved in the IAFSS since the virtual symposium in 2021. She was very active as part of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ team that built the online conference platform. She co-organized and co-led the EDI and ECR events and brought ‘gamification’ to the conference. After the virtual symposium, she served as co-chair of the newly formed Early Career Researchers sub-committee, devising new initiatives specifically targeted towards early career researchers/professionals and is excited to continue in that role as member of the IAFSS MAC. Bronwyn is looking forward to the opportunity to share her perspectives and aims to establish valuable initiatives for others early in their fire safety careers.

Eric Guillaume is a fire expert involved in various missions, including laboratory development, teaching, standardization and regulation, fire toxicity and modelling fire behaviour of materials. In the field of fire safety, he is the author of more than 50 scientific publications, 27 book chapters and more than 200 conference acts. He is Technical advisor for fire safety for many French authorities, and active in standardization as chairman of the standardization committee ISO TC92/SC3, dealing with “Fire Threat to People and the Environment” and convenor of ISO TC61/SC4/WG2, dealing with smoke opacity and corrosivity for plastics.

Dr. Simeoni conducted his studies in France, obtaining a Bachelor Degree in Physics from the University of Corsica (1994), a Master Degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science in Physics from the University of Aix-Marseille (1996), as well as a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Corsica (2000). Before joining WPI, he held academic leadership positions in fire research in the UK (Chair of the BRE Center for Fire Safety Engineering at the University of Edinburgh) and in France (Head of the Wildland Fire Research Program at the University of Corsica). He has also experience as a consultant in thermal and fire sciences in the US and has spent over 10 years volunteering as a firefighter in France, eventually becoming Fire Captain and Chief of a small Fire Station.

His research interests cover wildland fire and fire science. He has experience in developing experimental, analytical, and numerical techniques to better understand fire dynamics and to predict fire and wildland fire behavior and impact.

• FPE Department:   https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/fire-protection-engineering
• Personal webpage:  https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/asimeoni
• WIRC website:  https://www.wildfirecenter.org/
• Google scholar:  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cZHfgCsAAAAJ&hl=en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-meacham-5576b210/ 

Homepage: http://www.sbee.archi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

Xinyan has been an editor of the IAFSS website for over 10 yeras and the master of IAFSS social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) since 2015. He has won multiple Best Poster Awards and Best Fire Image Awards at the IAFSS International Symposiums. In 2020, he received the IAFSS Proulx Early Career Award for his significant contributions to the understanding of smoldering wildfires, fire dynamics in microgravity and cable fires.

• Website: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/beee/people/academic-staff/dr-huang-xinyan/ 

Beth Weckman is a professor and head of the Fire Research Group and Fire Safety Graduate program in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo. She has been a member of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) Executive Committee (since 2017), Vice Chair for the Americas and currently Trustee and Chair of Governance Committee, as well as Local host for the 13th Symposium, Proceedings co-editor for 12th, and Co-Track Chair for 14th Symposia. She is excited to continue through the transition of IAFSS, working to enhance vibrancy and activity through outreach and expanded membership, promoting new educational initiatives, international exchange and translation of fire research information across multiple disciplines, career levels and fire safety stakeholders. As well as serving for IAFSS, she chairs the SFPE Accreditation & Curriculum Committee and serves on the FSRI Research Advisory Board, ASTM E05: Fire Standards Committee and as technical expert for Standards Council Canada on ISO TC92 on Fire Safety Engineering.

At the UW Live Fire Research Facility, Beth leads a wide range of critical fire safety and fire science related research projects with undergraduates, graduate students and partners from university, fire service, industry and government. These include small, medium and full scale experiments aimed toward understanding and improving fire dynamics and fire performance of materials and systems and development of advanced understanding of fire behavior and hot gas movement across a span of fire safety engineering applications. Ongoing exciting research involves developing new test methods and sensors to characterize wildland fire emissions, development of risk parameters and frameworks for timber fire situations and interdisciplinary work with physiologists to study how modern fire environments impact humans. Through her work, Beth seeks to couple the latest fire research with educational initiatives to enrich learning and promote broad, multidisciplinary technology transfer amongst fire safety stakeholders at all levels.

• Personal:     https://uwaterloo.ca/mechanical-mechatronics-engineering/profile/ejweckma
• Research Facility: https://uwaterloo.ca/fire-research-and-safety/

Website: https://fpe.umd.edu/clark/faculty/601/Arnaud-Trouvé

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnaud-trouvé-27622b30/

On the MAC, as a member representative of the Americas, I want to further the inclusion and opportunities of Early Career Researchers within IAFSS and the wider fire safety research community. I work on the Research committee to channel research ideas to ensure that our organization continues to address fire safety challenges for the 21st century in an effective and sustainable manner.

website: https://forestry.ubc.ca/faculty-profile/felix-wiesner/

Prof. Nakamura received his doctoral degree in Engineering (2000) from Nagoya University (Japan), followed by MSc (1995) and BE (1993) at the same university. Prior to joining TUT, Prof. Nakamura was appointed as Tenured Associate Professor at Hokkaido University, Japan, Assistant Professor and Research Associate at Nagoya University, Japan. During his academic career in Japan, Prof. Nakamura also joined as visiting Research Assistant at The University of Kentucky, Guest Researcher at Building Fire Research Laboratory, The National Institute of Standard and Technology (Gaithersburg Campus), and Visiting Professor at University of California, San Diego. His research interests include combustion, fire dynamics, space engineering, and scale modeling.

• Lab:   https://ece.me.tut.ac.jp/wp/
• Personal webpage:  https://ece.me.tut.ac.jp/yuji/index-e.html
• Research Gate:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yuji-Nakamura
• Google scholar:  https://scholar.google.jp/citations?user=KWDFEw8AAAAJ&hl=ja&oi=ao

Miho Seike is associate professor of Hiroshima University. She got the Ph. D in 2015. Her major is safety engineering, especially evacuation behaviour experimental investigation in Large Enclosed Space Fire Safety (LES-FS) such as smoke filled tunnel, and underground space safety. She is interested in not only evacuation, but also rescue, and fire-fighting activities in large enclosed space such as tunnels and undergrounds space fire. She focuses on smoke’s and evacuees’ behaviors in tunnel fires by full-scale experiments and numerical simulations.

• Website: https://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~mseike/introduction/ 
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/miho-seike-111b8b2a0

• From 2015: Professor into the University of Poitiers. Institut des Risques Industriels Assurantiels et Financiers (IRIAF) and Pprime Institute – UPR 3346 CNRS.
• From 2003 to 2015: Maître de Conférences into the University of Poitiers. Institut des Risques Industriels Assurantiels et Financiers (IRIAF) and Pprime Institute – UPR 3346 CNRS.
• 2010: “Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches” de l’université de Poitiers
• 2001: PhD of the university of Poitiers

My research takes place in the Pprime Institute and concerns the fire safety sciences aspects, notably at the interface between the solid and the gaseous phases, the interfaces solid-gas and there interactions. The expertise developed associates both experimental and numerical aspects in order to characterize the thermal decomposition of solid fuels, the development of pyrolysis models, the gaseous emissions and there kinetic of formation, the ignition and auto-ignition of solid fuels, flame propagation process and the models of combustion. Another aspect concerns the thermomechanical behavior of solid fuels.

• Co-authors of more than 60 articles in international journals and 70 international conferences.
• Currently member of the editorial board of Fire Safety Journal and of Fire and Material.
• Reviewer for main fire-related journals and conferences.
• Co-chair of several session of the International Symposium of Fire Safety Science
• Supervision (Director) of 22 Phd students and I am actually supervising 3 phD students. Supervision of 15 post-doctoral positions.
• Management of 38 programs of research (national, industrial, European) and participation to 10 others.
• I participate to 30 external PhD defenses, with 22 as reviewer.
• In 2016, creation and co-chair of the condensed phase subgroup of the International Symposium of Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena (MaCFP).
• Mid-term career Award FORUM IAFSS. 2019.
• The FORUM Mid-Career Researcher Award recognizes exceptional achievement and demonstrated leadership in the fields of fire safety science or fire protection engineering made by those in mid-career

https://scholar.google.com.hk/citations?user=tFsOh_IAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

http://en.sklfs.ustc.edu.cn/2020/0916/c17183a449572/page.htm

https://me.vt.edu/people/faculty/lattimer-brian.html

https://eng.umd.edu/clark/faculty/1704/Shuna-Ni

Jennifer established and currently leads the Fire and Explosion Modelling Group (FMEG) at Surrey. Her research is focused on numerical studies of safety related reactive and non- reactive flows. She specializes in the development of physics-based sub-models and modelling approaches to capture the underlying physics of complex safety problems. Most of the development has been conducted within the frame of open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code OpenFOAM®. In the hydrogen safety area, her team has developed a comprehensive range of solvers for consequences analysis of both gaseous and liquid hydrogen covering jets and/or catastrophic releases, ignition, jet fire, explosions including vapour cloud explosions as well as deflagration to detonation transition. In the meantime, her team has continued to develop physics based sub-models for simulating various fire scenarios, more lately these including fire whirls, flame spread over liquid fuels, coupled simulations of fire dynamics and liquid fuel evaporation as well as battery fires.

•   https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/jennifer-x-wen
• https://www.surrey.ac.uk/fire-and-explosion-modelling-group
• https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-wen-3b929513

• Twitter/X: @Enrico_Evac
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/enrico-ronchi-74855a12
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_PAp-e4AAAAJ&hl=it
• OrcId: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2789-6359
• Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55085890300
• Web of Science: https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/1571157
• Lund University website: https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/enrico-ronchi

• Accessibility

Helmholtz awards PhD Prize 2024

David Marschalsky

Dr Michael Bergmann from the Institute of Propulsion Technology is the DLR-winner of the Helmholtz Doctorate Award. Helmholtz President Prof. Otmar Wiestler presented him with the award on 29 April in Berlin. Bergmann's thesis deals with the development of a numerical simulation tool based on the Discontinuous Galerkin method for the highly-accurate simulation of flows in turbomachinery.

Scale-resolving simulations, in which not only the mean flow but also the high-energy turbulent scales of a flow are resolved, allow the aerodynamic behaviour of turbomachinery components to be predicted without significant model errors. These simulations help to reduce the inaccuracies of current simulation models and have the potential to replace component bench tests in the development process of new turbomachinery designs, thus saving development time and costs. They are therefore seen as a crucial building block for climate-neutral aviation.

The flow solver developed by Dr Bergmann offers significant efficiency advantages over previously available methods, bringing the use of computationally intensive, scale-resolving simulations closer to industrial practice. The developed framework was integrated into the simulation system for turbomachinery flows TRACE, which has been continuously developed at DLR since 1989 and is used by the industrial partners MTU Aero Engines AG and Siemens Energy AG for the design processes of turbomachinery components.

The next major step in the transfer of research to industry is the industrialisation of the process. To this end, two projects involving industry have been launched in 2024: the DLR-led EU project Sci-Fi-Turbo from the Horizon 2023-24 research programme in cooperation with GE Aviation Germany. The TurboHyTec project from the joint project AG-Turbo in cooperation with MTU Aero Engines AG, which will increase the flexibility of the newly developed flow solver with regard to industrial processes.

About the Helmholtz PhD Prize

Every year, the Helmholtz Association awards the Helmholtz PhD Prize for the best doctoral theses. The aim of the Helmholtz Doctoral Prize is to encourage doctoral candidates to embark on a scientific career and to carry out mission-oriented top-level research, and to help shape the transfer of science to society at an early stage.

Annabel Brückmann

Best Thesis Award

STAG 2023 will host, as usual, the EG-Italy thesis award ceremony. The award is dedicated to the memory of Matteo Dellepiane , whose passion, enthusiasm, and commitment for science and computer graphics will be of inspiration for all the recipients of this prize. The Matteo Dellepiane Award recognizes high-quality research thesis produced in Italian institutions. We aim to motivate young researchers, giving them the opportunity to present their works at an international scientific venue. Three awards will be granted: one for the best PhD thesis, one for the best MSc thesis, and one for the best BSc thesis. Awarded researchers will be announced in a dedicated session of the STAG 2023 Conference, during which they will also be invited to give a presentation about their work. They will also be granted a free registration ticket to the main conference.

Eligibility

We invite nominations of young researchers whose PhD/MS/BS thesis respect the following requirements: Subject in Computer Graphics, Image Processing, Visualization, Computer Vision, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Fabrication (in general all topics covered by Eurographics / Siggraph call for papers) Research mainly conducted in Italy or in collaboration with Italian institutes (at least one supervisor must be affiliated with an Italian institute) Diploma granted between January 1st 2022 and July 31st, 2023 .

Important dates

Submission instructions.

To participate to the contest, researchers need to provide the following documentation: - The name and affiliation of the candidate - A pdf version of the Thesis (in English or Italian) - Eventual slides of the Thesis presentation/defense in pdf format - The name of supervisors - Explicit mention of which publications resulted from the Thesis.

The documentation of candidate nominations must be sent to the Thesis Awards chairs, Luca Cosmo ([email protected]) and Alberto Jaspe-Villanueva ([email protected]), not later than August 31st, 2023.

Nominations can be sent by the candidate, the supervisor, or any other researcher. If you do not receive an acknowledgment, please contact the Thesis Awards chair again.

The Thesis Award Committee is composed of members of the international communities of the topics covered by the STAG conference. The Committee will consider the quality of the work, the review reports, the quality and impact of the publications derived from the Thesis, the completeness and coherence of the state-of-the-art section in the Thesis, and any other relevant aspect of the work.

Thesis Award Committee members: Alberto Jaspe-Villanueva (KAUST King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), Andrea Giachetti (University of Verona), Daniela Cabiddu (CNR-IMATI Genoa), Davide Spano (University of Cagliari), Enrico Puppo (University of Genoa), Fabio Ganovelli (CNR-ISTI Pisa), Francesco Banterle (CNR-ISTI Pisa), Gianmarco Cherchi (University of Cagliari), Luca Cosmo (University of Venice), Marco Agus (University of Hamad Bin Khalifa), Marco Livesu (CNR-IMATI Genoa), Michela Mortara (CNR-IMATI Genoa), Paolo Cignoni (CNR-ISTI Pisa), Prashant Goswami (Blekinge Institute of Technology), Riccardo Scateni (University of Cagliari), Ruggero Pintus (CRS4 Cagliari), and Stefano Berretti (University of Florence).

Additional information

For any question concerning best thesis award please send an e-mail to [email protected] or contact the members of the organization

Luca Cosmo ( [email protected] ), Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Thesis Award co-chair Alberto Jaspe-Villanueva ( [email protected] ), KAUST King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thesis Award co-chair Nicola Capece ( [email protected] ), University of Basilicata (Italy), Conference co-chair Ugo Erra ( [email protected] ), University of Basilicata (Italy), Conference co-chair