This year’s Olga Igonkina travel scholarship has been awarded to master’s student at the University of Amsterdam Pranati Kharbana. The Indian physics student will receive a sum of 2,000 euros for a trip and stay at CERN.
This was announced Tuesday by jury chairman Wouter Hulsbergen and presented during Nikhef’s annual Christmas dinner. The prize was established in memory of Nikhef’s Russian-Dutch particle physicist Olga Igonkina, who passed away in Amsterdam in 2019.
Pranati Kharbana previously studied physics at the University of New Delhi and the Institute of Technology in Guwahati. This year she began a master’s degree in physics at the UvA and Nikhef, where she works in the ATLAS group. In India, she is considered a major talent, with top 1 percent scores in her exam year.
The Olga Igonkina travel scholarship is for talented students who want to explore their potential. Kharbana will travel to CERN to participate in the ATLAS Physics week in the fall of 2023. There, she also plans to strengthen her network, with an eye toward a promotion after graduation.
The jury awarded Kharbana’s application because of her outstanding performance as a student and her concrete and well-reasoned travel proposal.