Every year, DTU celebrates its PhD graduates at a festive reception, where the red carpet is rolled out, champagne is served, and prizes handed out.
This year, the PhD Graduation Ceremony took place on Friday 17 November in the afternoon in the sports hall at DTU Lyngby Campus with the participation of 150 candidates, their families and friends, and supervisors as well as heads of departments.
Provost of DTU Rasmus Larsen hosted the event and congratulated the young researchers for their exceptional level of academic quality, for their impressive scientific publications, patents, industry collaborations as well as great efforts in teaching, mentoring and in public dissemination.
This year's guest speaker was alumni Christoffer Lythcke-Elberling, who completed his PhD at DTU in 2016 on the topic of design and optimization of Power-to-X facilities. Today, he is Head of Transition Modelling & Analytics at Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping and recognized as one of the most promising young green talents.
PhD Thesis of the Year
Every year, PhD candidates can nominate their supervisor for the PhD Supervisor of the Year award that comes with a 25.000 DKK prize. This year it was awarded to associate professor Sara Monteiro Pires, DTU Food, who has shown a great level of adaptability as a supervisor, by “adopting” a student, whose primary supervisor had left DTU to pursue his career elsewhere. Sara Monteiro Pires showed commitment to making the transition as easy as possible with the wellbeing of the student in mind, while still maintaining a clear focus on academic quality.
The prize for PhD thesis of the year was awarded to Cecilie Knudsen for her thesis at DTU Bioengineering, which has put venom diagnostics on the international agenda through close collaborations with Doctors without borders, the Worlds Health Organisation and the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
Cecilie Knudsen won the 25.000 DKK Prize for her thesis: 'Development of rapid detection kit for stratification of snakebites'. She has discovered monoclonal antibodies and developed a rapid test that can detect venom components which ensures rapid diagnosis of snakebites, which is crucial for treatment when the type of snake that has bitten a patient is unknown.
PhD Supervisor of the Year
Every year, PhD candidates can nominate their supervisor for the PhD Supervisor of the Year award that comes with a 25.000 DKK prize. This year it was awarded to associate professor Sara Monteiro Pires, DTU Food, who has shown a great level of adaptability as a supervisor, by “adopting” a student, whose primary supervisor had left DTU to pursue his career elsewhere. Sara Monteiro Pires showed commitment to making the transition as easy as possible with the wellbeing of the student in mind, while still maintaining a clear focus on academic quality.
Young Researchers Award
This award is given to young researchers who have made an extraordinary effort and who have great potential for further development. This year the award that comes with a 15.000 DKK prize was given to:
- Asta Halkjær from DTU Compute for her thesis: 'Formally Correct Deduction Methods for Computational Logic’.
- Isaac Appelquist Løge from DTU Chemical Engineering for his thesis: ‘The Kinetics of Scale Formation’.
- Lisa Calearo from DTU Wind for her thesis: ‘Grid integration of electric vehicles: battery degradation and user needs’.
- Mark Svendsen from DTU Physics for his thesis: ‘Light-Matter Interactions from First Principles’.
- Nicholas Riedel from DTU Electro for his thesis: ‘Characterization and modelling of bifacial photovoltaic modules and systems’.
- Sotiria Lagouvardou from DTU Management for her thesis: ‘Market-Base Measures for Sustainable Shipping’.
After the announcement of the prizewinners, the PhD candidates in attendance were presented with their congratulatory diplomas, after which they got their pictures taken, toasted in champagne and applauded each other for their achievements.
