Nikhef PhD student Thijs van Eeden best Young Speaker at FYSICA 2021

20 April 2021

On Friday 16 April, Nikhef PhD student Thijs van Eeden won the finals of the Young Speakers Contest at FYSICA 2021 organised by the Netherlands’ Physical Society (NNV). He was declared the winner by the public with 38 percent of the votes.

Both other finalists: Adéla Melcrová (RUG) and Sonakshi Arora (TUD) finished narrowly behind him. Thijs van Eeden has been working as a PhD for a year now on the KM3NeT program at Nikhef, which is building a new neutrino detector at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Many of its components are assembled at Amsterdam Science Park.

The audience at FYSICA watches annual talks from three young researchers, each trying to win the favour of the audience. All three speakers were in excellent form, which was also reflected in the number of votes they received.

In the end, Thijs was the winner with his presentation “Mysterious messengers from the cosmos“. He received 750 euros. Adéla’s presentation was titled ‘The unexpected physics of a new antibiotic’, that of Sonakshi ‘How robust is robust?’.

The NNV is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and received the designation ‘Royal’ last Friday.