Dr. Antje Peters (Photos by: on the left - Udo Kurilla, GSI; on the right- Antje Peters, private) has received the Panda Theory PhD Prize 2018 for her doctoral thesis at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. The award was presented at the most recent Panda Collaboration Meeting in Stockholm by the spokesperson Klaus Peters (GSI/U Frankfurt) and Stefan Leupold (U Uppsala) as the representative of the Panda Theory Advisory Group.

Physicist Antje Peters, 27, received the prize of €200 and a certificate for her dissertation titled "Investigation of heavy-light four-quark systems by means of Lattice QCD". Her doctoral advisor was JProf. Dr. Marc Wagner from the Goethe University in Frankfurt.

The Panda Collaboration has awarded the Theory PhD Prize for the first time in order to honor the best theory dissertation written in connection with the Panda Experiment and its science program in the last year. Panda will be one of the key experiments of the future accelerator center FAIR. The experiment focuses on antimatter research as well as on various topics related to the weak and the strong force, exotic states of matter, and the structure of hadrons. More than 500 scientists from 20 countries currently work in the Panda Collaboration.

Candidates for the PhD Prize are nominated by their doctoral advisors. In addition to being directly related to the Panda Experiment, the nominees’ doctoral degrees must have received a rating of “very good” or better. Up to three candidates are shortlisted for the award and can present their dissertations at the Panda Collaboration meeting. The winner is chosen by a committee that is appointed for this task by the Panda Collaboration. The Panda Collaboration awards the Theory PhD Prize to specifically honor students’ contributions to the Panda project and to highlight the importance of cooperation with theory groups.

Prof. Dr. Volker Metag (Photo: Justus Liebig University Gießen) can be regarded as one of the fathers of FAIR and of the future antiproton facility as part of FAIR which we know now as HESR and PANDA for the storage ring and the experiment respectively.

As the former Research Director of GSI, he started already in the middle of the 1990s to shape the eventual future of GSI after SIS18 went in operation. He initiated a couple of working groups, where one of them was dealing with hadron physics, a completely new field at GSI. The first milestone was a “Letter of Intent for a Glue/Charm Factory” in 1999, followed by a “Conceptional Design Report” for the whole facility which was the basis for an evaluation in 2001 and finally the decision in 2003 by the German Science Council (Deutscher Wissenschaftsrat) to realize the project which later got the name FAIR.

In recognition of his engagement and achievements, the PANDA collaboration awarded to him the "PANDA Honorary Lifetime Membership" for his "Outstanding Service to the PANDA Collaboration and the Field of Hadron Physics".

The certificate and the medal were presented by the PANDA Spokesperson on May 28, 2018 at the Festive Colloquium for his 75th Birthday being held at that day at the Justus Liebig University Gießen. The colloquium was presented by Ulrike Thoma (University Bonn) and the laudatory speech was given by Wolfgang Kühn (University Gießen). Both have been working with Volker Metag for a long time in a variety of projects.

Call for Nominations

Every year, PANDA awards a prize for the best PhD thesis in PANDA of the last year and we’d like to ask for nominations for this year's prize. The rules are simple:

Who is eligible?
Members of PANDA who have had the oral defense of their PhD thesis during the year preceding the selection are eligible. The thesis may contain work related to other topics/experiments, but the majority of the work in the thesis must be directly connected to PANDA. The thesis advisor can nominate someone who successfully passed the oral defense during the period from June 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018.

And how can nominations be made?
A nomination can be made until July 31, 2018 by submitting the following information to the speaker of the collaboration:

1. A nomination letter in which the content of the thesis and the importance of this work for PANDA is described. This should also motivate why that thesis should be considered as the best one of the selection period from PANDA.

2. The thesis must be made available online on the PANDA webpage, and the URL must be included in the nomination. If it is not allowed to upload the thesis to the PANDA website, then a hard copy of the thesis must be submitted.

3. If the thesis is not written in English, then a (couple page) summary must be provided in English.

4. A copy of a certificate showing the grade achieved by the thesis (and a short description of the grade scale). This certificate should indicate the date of the oral exam. If that is not the case, then some other confirmation of when the oral exam was held must be provided (a letter for the thesis advisor will suffice, if a copy of a formal document is delivered before the September meeting.)

More details of the PhD Prize rules can be found here.

The nomination must be made in writing/email.

Please keep in mind that potential awardees for the PhD Prize need to be present at the GSI Meeting in November for their PhD presentation. Please consider registration and (if necessary) visa application in time for them.

A list of all laureates of the PANDA PhD Prize is provided on our site.

 Starting in 2018, PANDA will award a prize every two years for the best theory PhD thesis related to the PANDA experimental program and we would like to ask for nominations for this year's prize. The prize will include the award of 200 euro and will be presented at the PANDA Collaboration meeting in June 2018.

All theoreticians who have passed the oral defense of their PhD thesis between Dec 1, 2016 and Nov 30, 2017 are eligible. The thesis may contain work related to other experiments, but the majority of the work in the thesis must be directly connected to the PANDA physics program. The nomination should be made by the thesis advisor.

Read more information and details about nominations.