Two EPFL scientists win the Chorafas Prize 2017
The Chorafas Prize is awarded each year by the Dimitris N. Chorafas Foundation “for outstanding work in selected fields in the engineering sciences, medicine and the natural sciences.” The Foundation was instituted in 1992 by Dr Dimitris N. Chorafas (1926-2014), a Greek engineer, author, and philanthropist who was also its President from 1996 until 2014.
The Prize is given each to a selection of graduating doctoral students in the natural (“hard”) sciences from the Foundation’s partner universities in Europe, North America, and Asia; the list includes EPFL, MIT, UCLA, and ETHZ among others. The evaluation of the PhD students aims to reward “research characterized by its high potential for practical application and by the special significance attached to its aftermath.” The best doctoral students in each partner university are chosen and are awarded $5,000 each.
Edoardo Baldini, a former PhD student with Professor Majed Chergui’s lab at EPFL has been awards a 2017 Chorafas Prize. His thesis, co-supervized by Professor Fabrizio Carbone, is titled: “Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Collective Excitations in Strongly Interacting and Correlated Quantum Systems”. Baldini received his PhD in December 2016 and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT.
Konrad Domanki is a PhD student with Professor Michael Grätzel’s lab at EPFL. His research focuses on understanding and improving stability of perovskite solar cells – a new photovoltaic technology. He is also a Senior Project Manager with Innovation Forum Lausanne, where he is responsible for organization of 2017 edition of IMAGINE IF! Startup Accelerator.