On 22 July 2026, the ALICE Collaboration honoured the winners of its PhD Thesis Award during a special ceremony held as part of its meeting at CERN. The ALICE PhD Thesis Award is 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 significance of the contribution to the Collaboration. This year, 16 theses covering a wide variety of topics, including both physics-analysis and technical theses, were submitted for the award. The ALICE Thesis Award Committee unanimously decided to honour four winners: Swati Saha (NISER, Homi Bhabha National Institute, India), 
Andrea Tavira García (Université Paris-Saclay, France), Gregor Hieronymus Eberwein (University of Oxford, UK) and Chiara Ferrero (Politecnico di Torino, Italy).

The winners gave flash talks on their thesis work and received prizes and mementos from ALICE Spokesperson Kai Schweda. They were congratulated by Alessandra Fantoni, Chair of the Collaboration Board, and Jana Bielčíková, Chair of the Thesis Award Committee.

Find out more on the ALICE website.