Prix Schläfli
The Prix Schläfli of the Swiss Academy of Sciences awards each year the best PhD theses in the Natural Sciences. Established in 1866, it is one of the oldest prizes in Switzerland, .
The awarded domains are:
- Geosciences
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics (rotating)
If you want to learn more about the Prix Schläfli former laureates and how/when to submit an application, please go to the official SCNAT webpage.
Below we present the Geoscientists who received the award these last years:
Large earthquakes are once-in-a-century events with devastating consequences. Luca Dal Zilio has developed a model that describes the development of such events both temporally and geographically, and which could therefore become important for risk prevention.
Immagine: Victoria Lasheras
His field of research is the smallest particles with a large effect: Prix Schlaefli award winner Fabian Mahrt has investigated the conditions under which carbon black (soot) forms ice particles. He first had to build the apparatus for the innovative experiments.
Immagine: Giuseppe J. Crescenzo
Fabian Rey has examined hundreds of thousands of pollen grains in his work analysing the history of land use and vegetation more precisely than ever before. This got him the Prix Schläfli award in Geosciences.
Immagine: Thomas Stadler
There is a small moment of confusion in our conversation with Julie Zähringer, which says a lot about her research and its particular challenges. She explained that she had done research "in an area" in which there was hardly any prior knowledge. By this, she did not mean a subject area, but a very concrete, physical one: Zähringer has worked on the margins of various nature reserves in Madagascar, where the local population is often caught in a mishmash of different national and international interests. So we are talking about geographical regions, and thus also about the people who live in them. We are therefore also talking about politics, local economies, and historically charged situations.
Immagine: Julie Zähringer
Not far from St. Ursanne, the idyllic medieval village on the Doubs, there is another, quite different visitor attraction: swisstopo's Mont Terri rock laboratory. The microbiologist Alexandre Bagnoud often visited this laboratory between 2012 and 2016, not as a layman curious about optimum conditions for storing radioactive waste, but as an active researcher.
Immagine: Alexandre Bagnoud