PhD theses Richard Stevens and Frank Koppens crowned
Former FOM PHD researchers Dr. Richard Stevens and Dr. Frank Koppens have both received a prize for their thesis. On 10 October, Stevens received the de Da Vinci Award 2011, which is awarded by the 'European Research Community on Flow, Turbulence and Combustion'. And on 13 October Koppens received the Christiaan Huygens Prize for the discipline of Physics for innovative natural sciences research with societal relevance. He received the prize for the description of his groundbreaking research that makes it possible to understand the spin of a single electron in a nanostructure.
Stevens gained his doctorate on 30 June 2011 under FOM at the University of Twente for his thesis entitled 'Rayleigh-Bénard turbulence'. He is now working as a postdoc at FOM. The Da Vinci Award is a recognition of his scientific work and his talent for presenting data clearly. The prize consists of 1000 euros, a certificate and a medal.
http://www.ercoftac.org/events/da_vinci_competition/2011/
The Christiaan Huygens Prize went to Dr. Frank Koppens, who in the FOM focus group at Delft University of Technology gained his doctorate cum laude for his thesis entitled 'Coherence and control of a single electron spin in a quantum dot'. Former FOM PhD researchers at AMOLF, Liedeweij van der Laan and Ewold Verhagen, received a honourable mention as equally Hielke Akkermans. The prize consists of a tax-free sum of 10,000 euros, a bronze statuette of Christiaan Huygens and a certificate and it was presented by Babs van den Bergh, director Research and Science Policy at the Ministry for Education, Culture and Science.
The Christiaan Huygens Prize has been awarded each year since 1998 to a researcher who has made an innovative contribution to science. The prize aims to facilitate the contacts between Dutch universities and industry and to exert a positive influence on the influx of students to the natural sciences. Each year the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) appoints a jury of prominent scientists to assess the nominations and recommend a winner.
www.christiaanhuygensprijs.nl