Every year, the ATLAS collaboration comes together to celebrate the work of its PhD students through the ATLAS Thesis Awards. The winners of the 2021 edition were announced in an online ceremony on 24 February. The recipients are Jackson Carl Burzynski (Simon Fraser University), Giulia Di Gregorio (University & INFN Pisa), Manuel Guth (University of Geneva), Alexander Leopold (KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Stefan Popa (Transilvania University of Braşov) and Zachary Michael Schillaci (Brandeis University).

Thesis Awards Chair Tomasz Bold praised the high quality of the 36 nominations, noting that the winners were selected “out of many outstanding physics results and valuable service work to the collaboration”. These awards, he added, “are a unique opportunity to shed light on the essential work carried out by students”.

The winners each gave a presentation on their time spent as ATLAS students, sharing their experiences and summarising their research. Their talks reflected the diversity of ATLAS research, including searches for exotic new particles, novel detector design for the HL-LHC upgrade of ATLAS and precision measurements of the Standard Model. They also acknowledged the mentors, family members and peers who had supported them throughout their PhD.

Find out more on the ATLAS website.