DCMMP Prizes and Awards

2020 DCMMP PhD Thesis Award Competition

Deadline for entry: February 28, 2020

The Division of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (DCMMP) of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce the Condensed Matter and Materials Physics PhD Thesis award competition.

This award competition, which will be held as part of the CAP Annual Congress, is open to condensed matter and materials physics graduates from Canadian universities who have defended their first PhD thesis in calendar year 2019. Competitors must be a member in good standing of the CAP and DCMMP at the time of competition. Anyone submitting an abstract for this competition who is not already a member of the CAP must apply for membership, including DCMMP membership, at the time of submission of their abstract (https://cap.ca/membership/fees-and-forms//online-application-forms). If they are a member of CAP but not of DCMMP, they can send an e-mail to membership@cap.ca at the time of submission to request the addition of DCMMP membership to their file. Up to three competitors will be selected from amongst all entries submitted for this competition via the CAP’s 2020 Congress abstract submission process. Selected competitors will be asked to submit a copy of their thesis and will be given a 30 minute time slot for an oral presentation (25 minutes plus 5 for questions) at a dedicated session of the Congress. The judging will be based on the quality of both the written thesis (50%) and the oral presentation (50%) at the Congress. The prize recipient will be announced at the Thursday evening Recognition Reception.

  1. Abstract submission – Eligible PhD graduates may submit one abstract for the “DCMMP PhD thesis award competition” oral session at the 2020 CAP Congress. The abstract must be submitted through the 2020 CAP congress abstract submission site. The proposed title for the presentation must coincide with the title of the graduate’s PhD thesis and the abstract body (less than 2400 characters in total including spaces, ~300 words) must reflect the content of the thesis. The abstract should quote the papers the graduate has published during their PhD that are related to their thesis work. DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSION TO THIS SESSION WILL BE FEBRUARY 28, 2020 (11:59 PM UTC). Late or multiple abstracts for this competition will not be considered.
  2. Preliminary screening – Abstracts submitted to the “DCMMP PhD thesis award competition” session will be reviewed by the condensed matter representatives on the 2020 Congress program committee. Submitted abstracts will not be automatically accepted to this session. It is anticipated that three top-level abstracts will be selected for oral presentation to the “DCMMP PhD thesis award competition“. Abstracts that are not accepted for this competition will be viewed as a contributed abstract and considered for another specialized session of the Congress, for oral or poster presentation.
  3. Acceptance and thesis submission Graduates who have submitted an abstract for the “DCMMP PhD thesis award competition” will be notified by e-mail of the decision of the program committee. Those whose abstracts are accepted for competition, will be asked to submit a PDF copy of their thesis for evaluation by the award committee.
  4. Thesis evaluation – The thesis of each graduate competing in the “DCMMP PhD thesis award competition” will be independently reviewed by a committee formed by 1) DCMMP past-chair (or their designate) 2) DCMMP vice-chair (or their designate) and 3) a DCMMP member nominated by the program committee chair. Evaluation committee members are immediately required to declare any real or perceived conflict of interest with graduates accepted to the thesis award competition. Examples of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to, relatives and friends, former Masters’ or PhD students, and current or past post-doctoral fellows and associates. The program committee chair will replace those award committee members who are found to be in conflict of interest. After confirming the eligibility of each accepted competitor, each evaluation committee member will independently review the thesis.
  5. CAP Congress presentation – Each of the selected graduates will be asked to present their thesis in a 25-minute (+ 5-minute questions) oral presentation during the “DCMMP PhD thesis award competition” session at the CAP Annual Congress. The evaluation committee will be the judges for the oral presentation and will participate in the question and answer process at the end of the presentations. The award will be given to the competitor with the best combination of written thesis and oral presentation, which will be weighted on a 50%-50% basis. The decision by the award committee will be final and cannot be appealed.
  6. Award The award will consist of a $200 monetary prize and will be presented with the other DCMMP divisional prizes during the Thursday evening Recognition Reception.

Please contact programs@cap.ca for any additional information.

Past winners

  • 2019:  no prize awarded
  • 2018:  Jan Hendrik Pohls, (PhD Dalhousie University, 2018).  Thesis: “Ultralow Thermal Conductivity and Novel Thermoelectric Materials”
  • 2017:  John Malcolm, (PhD University of Guelph, 2017).  Thesis: “The role of pseudospin in the optical and electronic properties of relativistic materials
  • 2016: Isil Ozfidan (PhD University of Ottawa 2015).  Thesis: “Electron-Electron Interactions in Optical Properties of Graphene Quantum Dots”.