CAN Thesis Prize for the best PhD thesis on astroparticle research
As of 2023 CAN has introduced a CAN Thesis Prize for the best PhD thesis within the field of astroparticle research at a Dutch University or Research Institute.
The prize will be awarded on an annual basis. The winner will receive 1000 Euro and will be invited to the CAN symposium for giving a keynote on their research.
Nominations have to be made by the Promotor, Co-promotor or Supervisor of the thesis. Theses will be judge by a subcommitee of the CAN, based on the following criteria: the contribution to the body of academic knowledge (40%), the originality of the approach (25%), the soundness of the methodology used (20%), The impact of the research (15%).
CAN Thesis Prize 2025
The 2025 CAN thesis prize has been awarded to Giovanni Maria Tomaselli (University of Amsterda) for his thesis titled 'Gravitational Atoms and Black Hole Binaries'.
The selection committee reasons: This theoretical study excels in its overarching nature, in line with the theme of the CAN, connecting astrophysics (black hole binary dynamics), particle physics (particles outside the Standard Model), atomic physics (the gravitational atom) and general relativity (creation of GWs) in a beautifully imaginative manner accessible to the non-expert. The impact of this thesis work is large, considering the more than 275 citations for the 5 papers that make up the core of the thesis, of which 3 as first-author, for refereed journals in his thesis.
Previous year(s):
2024 CAN thesis prize: Shared between Martijn Oei (Leiden University) "Giant galactic outflows and shocks in the Cosmic Web" and Mart Pothast (Radboud University Nijmegen) "Ultra-high-energy cosmic particle identification"
2023 CAN thesis prize: Peter Tsun Ho Pang (Utrecht University) "From spacetime to nucleus: Probing nuclear physics and testing general relativity"