2023 MU prorector's awards for exceptional results during postgraduate studies

On 8th December 2022, prof. Šárka Pospíšilová, a prorector for research and doctoral studies, gave awards to new MU absolvents for exceptional results during their postgraduate studies. She acknowledged 33 fresh absolvents and their supervisors from Masaryk University. In the physics field, two fresh graduates from the Department of Physical Electronics were awarded: dr. Marta Šlapanská and dr. Katarína Bernátová. Both absolvents belong to the research group Deposition of Thin Films and Nanostructures.

20 Oct 2023 Tereza Schmidtová

MU prorector's awards for exceptional results during their postgraduate studies received those absolvents who successfully finished their doctoral studies in the standard length of 4 years. Concurrently, the absolvents needed to achieve outstanding results through their research. Research quality is reflected in their dissertation thesis and the scientific articles published in highly regarded journals of Q1 levels. The explanation of Q indexes of publications can be found for example here. The award includes a financial bonus for the graduate and their supervisors. The prorector aims to motivate current PhD students to finish their studies in a standard time with the best possible results. More about this year's award ceremony can be found here.

Two fresh graduates in the physics field were awarded for the academic year 2022/2023. Both studied PhD program in Plasma Physics at the Department of Plasma Physics and Technology and were part of the Deposition of Thin Films and Nanostructures research group. The topic of their dissertations was magnetron sputtering of thin films, which is the main research topic of Prof. Vašina's research group.

Awarded was Dr. Stanislava Debnárová. and her supervisor Assoc. Prof. Pavel Souček. The title of Dr. Debnárová's dissertation was "Development of ternary and quaternary nanostructured coatings and their preparation by magnetron sputtering."
Awarded was Dr. Michael Kroker and his supervisor Prof. Petr Vašina. Dr. Kroker's dissertation title was "Magnetron sputtered hard ternary coatings with enhanced fracture toughness."

The Ph.D. students from the Department of Plasma Physics and Nanotechnology have been very successful in winning this award so far. Last year, the prize was awarded to Dr. Marta Šlapanská and Dr. Katarína Bernátová. Both were also part of the Deposition of Thin Films and Nanostructures research group at the Department of Plasma Physics and Technology. The year before last, when the prize was awarded for the first time, Dr. Petr Bílek from the Diagnostics and Modelling of Plasma research group at the Department of Plasma Physics and Technology was awarded. Let us add that winning this award is not easy. Not all PhD students in physics manage to fulfill the primary conditions for this award, i.e., to graduate in the standard time and at the same time to achieve excellent results.

Congratulations to all the awardees!