On 15 July 2025, the ALICE collaboration honoured its PhD thesis award winners during a special ceremony held as part of the ALICE collaboration meeting at CERN. ALICE PhD thesis awards are dedicated to the memory of Karel Šafařík (1953-2024).
Since 2008, ALICE has recognised the most outstanding PhD theses based on the excellence of the results obtained, the quality of the thesis manuscript and the importance of the contribution to the collaboration. This year, 20 theses were submitted for the award on a great variety of topics based on physics analysis and instrumentation. The ALICE Thesis Award committee unanimously decided to honour five winners:
- Dr. Mihail-Bogdan Blidaru (University of Heidelberg, Germany) for the thesis on "Bent monolithic active pixel sensors and material budget imaging studies towards the ALICE ITS3 upgrade". Bogdan is now a PostDoc with ALICE at GSI Darmstadt.
- Dr. Mario Ciacco (Politecnico di Torino, Italy) for the thesis on "Measurement of quantum numbers balance and fluctuations with ALICE at the LHC". Mario is now a PostDoc with ALICE at Turin University.
- Dr. Matthias Kleiner (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) for the thesis on "Drift-Field Distortions and Specific Energy Loss Calibration of the ALICE TPC in LHC Run 3". Matthias is a PostDoc with ALICE at Goethe University Frankfurt.
- Dr. Stefano Politano (Politecnico di Torino, Italy) for the thesis on "Heavy quark study via prompt and non-prompt strange D-meson measurements in pp and Pb-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC". Stefano is a fellow with ALICE at CERN.
- Dr. Wioleta Rzesa (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland) for the thesis on "Non-identical particle femtoscopy of pairs containing deuteron and interaction studies of nucleons with strange matter". Wioleta will soon take up a PostDoc position at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.
The winners gave flash talks on their thesis work and received prizes and mementos from the ALICE Spokesperson, Marco van Leeuwen, with congratulations from the Chair of the Collaboration Board, Alessandra Fantoni, and the Chair of the thesis award committee, Jana Bielčíková.
