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.
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.
In 2017 the 1st PANDA Photo Contest took place and the winners in the three categories have been presented during our Collaboration Meeting in Novosibirsk.
Dr. Erik Etzelmüller has received the Panda PhD Prize 2017 for his doctoral thesis at GSI, FAIR, and the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. The award was presented by the spokesman of the Panda Collaboration, Klaus Peters from GSI, at the most recent Panda Collaboration meeting at the BINP in Novosibirsk.
Physicist Erik Etzelmüller, 30, received the prize of €200 and a certificate for his dissertation titled Developments towards the technical design and prototype of the PANDA Endcap Disc DIRC.
His doctoral advisor was Prof. Dr. Michael Düren from the Justus Liebig University in Giessen.
The Panda Collaboration has awarded the PhD Prize once per year since 2013 in order to honor the best dissertation written in connection with the Panda Experiment. 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 17 countries currently work in the Panda Collaboration. In his dissertation, Dr. Etzelmüller studied die Endcap Disc DIRC, a Cherenkov detector that forms one of the main components of the charged particle identification of the Panda detector, which is being built at the FAIR accelerator facility.
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 PhD Prize to specifically honor students’ contributions to the Panda project.
The FAIR ground-breaking took place on July 4, 2017.
A great day for all who love hadron and nuclear physics. An important milestone to get the job done. We are happy and proud of being part of this endeavor.
The construction of the international accelerator facility FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) has begun. The start of building construction and civil engineering work is a crucial moment for one of the largest construction projects for scientific research worldwide. On July 4, 2017, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the large ring accelerator SIS 100, which will be the key component of the future accelerator facility FAIR. The construction site is located to the northeast of GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt.