Newsfrom our faculty members and students
Ricardo Galvão: Doctor Honoris Causa and IST Distinguished Lecture
November 27 2023Ricardo Magnus Osório Galvão is a prominent Brazilian scientist, academic and scientific leader, with a strong link to Universidade de Lisboa (UL), through Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) and Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN).
At the proposal of IST, the UL will award the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa to professor Ricardo Galvão in recognition of his outstanding academic, scientific and professional contributions, which have been highly recognized worldwide, and his collaboration with Técnico since Portugal entered the path to Nuclear Fusion.
The Doctor Honoris Causa ceremony will take place at Salão Nobre of IST, on December 4, 2023, at 10am
More details and program here
Ricardo Galvão will also deliver the IST Distinguished Lecture “Current Brazilian Environmental Policy for the Amazon Rainforest”. This is an event supported by the Scientific Area of Plasmas Physics, Lasers and Nuclear Fusion.
The IST Distinguished Lecture will take place at Abreu Faro auditorium, on December 4, 2023, at 3pm
More details here
Ricardo Galvão, current president of Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), is a full professor at the Institute of Physics of the University of São Paulo and holds a PhD from MIT. He has occupied major positions within the Brazilian research organisations, in particular director of the Brazilian Center for Research in Physics (CBPF) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and president of the Brazilian Physical Society. Before that, together with Ivan Nascimento, he led the team that designed and built the TBR-1, the first tokamak in Brazil and Latin America, and later on took the EPFL’s TCA to Brazil, a medium-sized tokamak currently being explored at the Institute of Physics.
As a man of causes, he has always played a civic and social role, helping, for example, to consolidate the Union of Physicists from Portuguese-Speaking Countries (UFPLP), he was a candidate for the Brazilian Congress and he was part of the scientists’ movement “Movimento dos Cientistas Engajados”.
Tiago Dias receives PhD in Engineering Physics
November 09 2023On 9 November 2023, Dr. Tiago Dias received his PhD in Engineering Physics with a thesis entitled 'Monte Carlo Algorithms for Low-Temperature Plasmas'. His work was supervised by Prof. Vasco Guerra (IST), Dr. Milan Simek (IPP Prague) and Dr. Olivier Guaitella (LPP France).
The thesis committee consisted of Dr. Zdenek Bonaventura (Masarik University, Czech Republic), Dr. Pedro Viegas (IST), Dr. Sasha Dujko (IPB, Serbia), Prof. Vasco Guerra (IST) and Prof. Luís L. Alves (IST, President).
Congratulations Tiago !
Faculty members in Stanford & Elsevier Top 2%
October 28 2023Stanford University and Elsevier released an update of the World’s Top 2% Scientists list, which includes 200,000 researchers. In total, more than 120 Técnico researchers are among the most-cited scientists in 2023 worldwide, with 3 belonging to the scientific area of Plasma Physics, Lasers and Nuclear Fusion (FPLFN): Luís Lemos Alves, Luís Oliveira e Silva and Vasco Guerra.
Stanford and Elsevier also published the list of the 2% most influential scientists over their entire careers, which includes 2 researchers from FPLFN: Luís Oliveira e Silva and Vasco Guerra.
Database information can be consulted here.
Congratulations to all !
Frederico Fiúza elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
October 26 2023At its latest meeting, the Council of the American Physical Society (APS) acted favorably on the nomination of Frederico Fiúza for Fellowship in the Society upon the recommendation of the Division of Plasma Physics. Election to Fellowship in the American Physical Society is limited to no more than one-half of one percent of the membership and is a recognition by peers for outstanding contributions to physics.
The citation, which will appear on the Fellowship Certificate, will read as follows: 'For leadership and fundamental contributions to the plasma physics of energetic particle generation from collisionless shocks, magnetic reconnection, and MHD instabilities'.
The APS Fellowship Program was created to recognize members who may have made advances in physics through original research and publication, or made significant innovative contributions in the application of physics to science and technology. They may also have made significant contributions to the teaching of physics or service and participation in the activities of the Society.
Congratulations Frederico!
Rui Calado receives PhD in Engineering Physics
September 26 2023On 22 September 2023, Dr. Rui Calado received his PhD in Engineering Physics with a thesis entitled 'Modelling of Alfvén modes and their stability in the presence of ICRH-accelerated energetic ion populations in tokamak devices'. His work was supervised by Dr. Fernando Nabais (IST) [and Prof. João Pedro Bizarro (IST) during part of the work].
The thesis committee consisted of Dr. Mirko Salewski (DTU, Denmark), Dr. António Figueiredo (IST), Dr. Manuel Muñoz (U Sevilla, Spain), Dr. Fernando Nabais (IST) and Prof. Luís l. Alves (IST, President).
Congratulations Rui !