Academic Awards 2024 booklet

77 General comments about the works submitted The TU/e community can take pride in the fantastic work being done by our PhD students. The jury was greatly impressed by the ambition level of the projects that were carried out by all nominated candidates, reflecting the rich variety of exciting impactful projects in our PhD programs, as well as direct coupling to and impact on important and timely challenges faced in society and industry. The quality of the nominated theses varied from “very good” to “excellent”. The excellent reports not only presented a clear view on the work that has been done, but also demonstrated solid grounding in the relevant scientific communities and the current state of the art. In addition, these reports demonstrated how the candidates have actively and critically assessed during the project intermediate results in the light of the user requirements and project objectives and adapted dynamically the project if necessary. In all cases, the work was very well received by the clients, and often more widely beyond the direct project team. Winner of the award Winner is VINCENT DEBETS from Applied Physics. The committee is aware that the winner is the only male candidate in the list of nominees. However, the decision of the committee is purely based on the content and impact of the thesis and not on gender. Another remark is the potential conflict of interest between Prof. Storm and the candidate. Prof. Storm was the second promotor of the candidate. Storm was not allowed to vote for Debets, and in the discussions about the nominees his involvement (of course) was also taken into account and. As chair of the committee, I can guarantee you that the final decision was made in an honest manner. Laudatio It is our great pleasure to announce the winner of the TU/e PhD Thesis Award: the exceptionally talented Dr. Vincent Debets. Vincent defended his thesis entitled ‘Glassy Dynamics in Dense Active Matter’ at Eindhoven University of Technology on July 7 th , 2023 within the department of Applied Physics. Vincent’s PhD thesis is a tour de force in a relatively young field called glassy active matter — an interdisciplinary field nested between condensed matter physics, (non- equilibrium) statistical mechanics, soft matter science, biological physics, and applied mathematics. The study of glassy active matter is still a new topic, in which Vincent’s PhD thesis breaks ground to offer a wealth of new methodologies and insights that significantly advance the field. The quality of Vincent’s PhD work is simply outstanding in terms of scientific breadth and depth. Vincent has been the first to recognize a high degree of universal physics across different non-equilibrium active-matter systems, allowing him to reconcile seemingly conflicting results that were recently reported by various world-leading groups in the field. Vincent’s output comprises an exceptionally large number of publications, including three publications in the high- impact journal Physical Review Letters, considered (one of) the highest possible journals in the Applied Physics field. He has also made a strong effort to disseminate his work to a broader audience. In particular, he has co-authored a popular-science article on the physics of glass formation for the magazine Vormen uit Vuur (publication of the Nederlandse Vereniging van Vrienden van Ceramiek en Glas), he has delivered a large number of invited talks at (international) conferences, webinars, and universities, and he has given interviews for BNR Nieuwsradio and the TU/e university magazine Cursor about his work. REPORT OF THE JURY