ASC 2014 Best Student Paper Contest
August 19, 2014 (PA19). The Applied Superconductivity Conference has established a “Best Student Paper Contest” to recognize outstanding presentations made at the Applied Superconductivity Conference by a full-time student. The purpose of this Contest is to encourage students to perform high quality research and present their work in a competitive environment.
The contest, conducted for the first time in 2014, involved two steps. First, the participants were required to submit a 2-page extended abstract together with their regular abstract submission by the submission deadline (January 22, 2014). Participants were also required to submit a letter signed by the student’s primary advisor indicating that the work presented in the paper was done primarily by the student contestant and performed while he/she was a student. The extended abstracts in three categories (Large Scale, Materials, and Electronics) were evaluated by three panels of judges who are experts in the respective areas. Selected finalists, up to six in each category, competitively presented their work in front of judges in three parallel oral sessions on August 11th at the conference. Each finalist was given 15 minutes for making his/her presentation and 5 minutes to answer questions from the panel and the audience. Three winners were selected in each of the three categories: Large Scale, Materials, and Electronics. The first, second, and third prizes in each of the three categories included US$ 750, US$ 500, and US$ 250 cash awards respectively sponsored by the IEEE Council on Superconductivity. In addition, a special corporate award has been established in memory of Professor Alexander Shikov for the best paper in the “LTS and HTS Conductors” subcategory. The award, sponsored by JSC TVEL and the Bochvar Institute VNINM, included a US$ 500 cash award.
Riccardo Arpaia from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, won the first prize in Electronics. The second and the third prizes in Electronics were won by Mohd. Mawardi Saari from Okayama University, Japan, and Nathan Gemmell from Heriot-Watt University, U. K, respectively.
In Materials, the first and the second prizes were won by Christopher Segal and Maxime Matras, both students from the Applied Superconductivity Center, NHMFL, Florida State University, U. S. A., respectively. Maxime Matras also won the prestigious Alexander Shikov prize. The third prize in Materials went to Golsa Naderi of North Carolina State University, U. S. A.
Emmanuele Ravaioli from University of Twente, The Netherlands, won the first prize in the Large Scale category. Another student from the Applied Superconductivity Center, NHMFL, Florida State University, U. S. A., Carlos Sanabria, won the second prize. Jiayin Ling from Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U. S. A. won the third prize.
Dr. Deepnarayan Gupta, the chair of the best student paper contest and an elected ASC Board Member, announced the winners during a prize distribution ceremony on the final day of the Applied Superconductivity Conference.
SNF offers the winners the possibility of immediate publication (as a Preview) of their slide presentation plus the extended abstract and/or prepublication of their ASC manuscript as submitted to ASC, if it doesn’t require any revision. Each manuscript will be reviewed by SNF reviewers, independent of the ASC peer review. Slide presentations (in the PPT or PDF format) and manuscripts (in the WORD or PDF format) should be promptly submitted to (Click to show email).