The School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS) extends its heartfelt congratulations to the Class of 2022 postgraduate students. Each year, several academic prizes are given to postgraduate students who have excelled in research. Here are the winners for this year:
MRSS Best Thesis Award: Dr Mahajan Shivam
The Materials Research Society of Singapore (MRSS), an academic not-for-profit organisation representing Singapore’s materials science community, established the MRSS Medal in Physics in 2010. Each year, a medal (with a cash prize) is given to the graduate student with the best PhD thesis in Physics. This year, a total of 4 applicants applied for the award.
Dr Shivam Mahajan (left), winner of the MRSS Medal in Physics accepted the award from Prof Zhang Baile (right), Assistant Chair of Research and Graduate Studies (Physics), SPMS. Photo credit: M. Fadly
This year, the Materials Research Society Medal in Physics was awarded to Dr Mahajan Shivam, who graduated with a PhD in Physics. His thesis is titled “Mechanical properties of amorphous systems: a computational study.”
Explaining his research, Dr Shivam said: “In most solid materials, atoms are disorderly arranged in space and lack the periodicity of crystals. This lack of order makes it difficult to predict and engineer these systems’ mechanical and transport properties.
“My research demonstrated the existence of defects in disordered solids and their influence on the mechanical and transport properties. For example, in the propagation of sound waves, the defects correspond to soft localised regions and are not structurally apparent due to the disordered arrangement of the atoms. I explored the mechanical properties of amorphous molecular materials and the amorphous packing of granular particles.”
Singapore Mathematical Society Medal: Dr Johan Chrisnata and Dr Zhang Zhixiang
The SMS Medal in Mathematical Sciences was donated in 2016 by the Singapore Mathematical Society. Ordinarily, one medal (with cash award) is awarded each year to the postgraduate student with the best PhD thesis in the Mathematical Sciences. This year, the selection committee made the decision to award the SMS Medal to two deserving students.
Dr Johan Chrisnata(left), winner of the MRSS Medal in Physics accepted the award from Prof Zhang Baile (right), Assistant Chair of Research and Graduate Studies (Physics), SPMS. Photo credit – M.fadly
The first winner is Dr Johan Christana, a PhD student jointly studying at NTU and Techion (the Israel Institute of Technology), supervised by Assistant Professor Kiah Han Mao from NTU SPMS and Professor Tuvi Etzion from Technion. Dr Chrisnata’s research on information theory has previously been featured on the College of Science blog. During his PhD studies, he published six Q1 journal papers and won the Best Student Paper award at the International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications (ISITA) in 2020.
The second winner is Dr Zhang Zhixiang, who performed research on random matrix theory under the supervision of Professor Pan Guanming. He published two Q1 journal papers during his PhD studies. He has since moved to the United States and did not attend the award ceremony.
The School warmly congratulate the winners.