Xnovo PhD prizes awarded at Danscatt 2024
The prizes for this year’s best Danscatt PhD theses (plural due to the number of talented nominees) were awarded to:
- Andy Sode Anker, Department of Chemistry and Nano-Science Center, University of Copenhagen – supervised by Associate Professor Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen, and
- Thorbjørn Erik Køppen Christensen, Department of Chemistry and iNANO, Aarhus University – supervised Professor Henrik Birkedal.
The committee regarded Andy Sode Anker‘s thesis, Towards Automated Structure Analysis of Nanoparticles, to be an impressive piece of work on nanoparticles and structures in solution, demonstrating the power of combining information of both the local order from PDF and the particle order from SAXS to overcome problems that the methods cannot individually. In addition, Andy’s thesis comprises an important step towards applying machine learning methods for analysis of X-ray and neutron scattering data.
Likewise, the committee regarded Thorbjørn Erik Køppen Christensen‘s thesis, Imaging Insights on Club Crystallites and Osteoorientations, to be of remarkable breadth and depth as well as an exceptional representative of the DanScatt spirit. Not only did Thorbjørn very unusually combine multiple X-ray techniques and apply these to address important scientific questions, he also made methodological contributions that now enable all DanMAX users to return with integrated 2D diffraction data from their beamtimes.
The prize-winners both presented their work at the Danscatt 2024 meeting, hosted by Aarhus University.
The PhD awards are sponsored by Xnovo, to encourage new young talents within the field of x-ray and neutron science.
