The CHIPP Prize is to reward annualy the best student preparing his/her PhD thesis in Experimental or Theoretical Particle Physics. Emphasis will be given to the quality of his/her present work and to its relevance within his/her research group, as well as to novel ideas possibly brought up by the student.

The applications are evaluated and assessed by the Selection Committee, at present composed of G. Colangelo (BE, Chair), A. Bay (EPFL), M. Bourquin (GE) and P. Truöl (ZH).

The advertisement is sent to all CHIPP Members and follows the procedure as decided on 12 January 2012 by the CHIPP Board.

Prize 2011

The CHIPP Prize for the best PhD student in experimental or theoretical particle physics is awarded for the fourth time. Following the procedure published on the CHIPP website, the CHIPP Board selected Lesya Shchutska from EPFL for herdissertation (in preparation) on measurement of the cosmic-ray positron fraction with PEBS. The laudation says: "For her broad contribution to optimise the design of a balloon borne cosmic ray detector".

Lesya Shchutska did her Master thesis as a student of ITEP Moscow in the LHCb experiment, where she performed with simulated data a challenging analysis of measuring the time dependent CP asymmetry for the Bs->φγ decays. In 2008 she came to EPFL as a PhD student to Prof. Nakada’s group, where she first continued her work in the LHCb experiment – analysing real data. Eager to embark on detector development and design optimization in a project, which offered the possibility of acquiring hardware experience, she accepted to work for the Positron Electron Balloon Spectrometer (PEBS) experiment.

She performed very detailed simulations and optimisations of the PEBS electromagnetic calorimeter and participated in the prototype tests, where she extracted the prototype performance and compared it with the simulation, which was also developed by her. In parallel, she participated in a balloon campaign in cooperation with the Swedish Space National Board by joining the Aachen group. The PERDaix detector used for this campaign was a very scaled down version of the PEBS detector without calorimeter.

At the CHIPP Plenary session 2011 in Leysin (1 September 2011), the CHIPP Chair (Martin Pohl) hands over the diploma and the prize to the happy winner Lesya Shchutska (Photos JPR)
Presentation

Previous prize winners :

2010 Alexander Kish from University of Zurich

The CHIPP Prize for the best PhD student in experimental or theoretical particle physics was awarded for the third time. Out of three candidates and following the normal procedure, the CHIPP Board selected Alexander Kish from University of Zurich. The laudation says: “For his excellent experimental work and original contributions in the field of direct dark matter detection“.

Alexander Kish joined the group of Laura Baudis at University of Zurich in January 2007. Prior to this he has worked at International Sakharov Environmental University and Belarusian National Academy of Science in Minsk, in the fields of nuclear physics, spin chemistry and radio-ecology. Since he was fascinated by dark matter research, he decided to move to Aachen, and then Zurich, and work on the XENON experiment. He has started to learn liquid scintillator and light detection techniques with XENON10 project, contributed to design and construction of the XENON100 detector, and currently working on PMT characterization, Monte Carlo simulations, and data analysis, aiming to finish PhD study in 2010.

At the CHIPP Plenary session 2010 in Gersau (23 August 2010), one of the CHIPP Vice-Chairs (Tatsuya Nakada), stepping in for Klaus Kirch (the CHIPP Prize responsible), hands over the diploma and the prize to the happy winner Alexander Kish (Photo JPR)
Presentation

2009 Pedro Schwaller, University of Zurich
For his deep understanding of quantum field theory and his important and original contributions to theoretical particle physics.
Presentation at the CHIPP plenary (25 August 2009)

2008 Michael Rissi, ETH Zurich
For his excellent experimental work and original contributions in the field of gamma-ray astrophysics.
Presentation at the CHIPP plenary (8 September 2008)

Updated : C. Blanchard, 15.03.2010