Vlieland 2024 recap - "Bert de Boer Poster Prize" for Luc Assink

Between Sunday, June 9, and Tuesday, June 11, the bi-annual scientific meeting of all research staff of the Zernike Institute NRC took place on the lovely island of Vlieland. During this three-day event, the entire field of materials science was presented, primarily by our junior staff, including PhD students and PostDocs. This year, Professor Gail McConnell (University of Strathclyde, UK) delivered an inspiring keynote on "Wider horizons in optical imaging with the mesolens".

The meeting provided excellent access to experts outside one's own field in an informal setting: a true kaleidoscope of materials science from the Stratingh, GBB, and Zernike Institutes. With almost 200 participants, it was a lively event and an excellent continuation of a tradition established in 1970. Besides scientific talks, 45-second flash presentations, and poster sessions, the fun part included early morning running, martial arts, and beach walks, as well as late evening pub quizzes and dancing.

Critical juries awarded the best three flash presentations and the three best oral presentations the opportunity to join the Zernike Institute director, Professor Moniek Tromp, for dinner. The laureates for the best flash presentation were Sietse Dijt (Vlijm Lab), Julien van der Ree (Palasantzas Lab), and Melina Vavali (Rudolf Lab). The best oral presentations were given by Cedric A. Cordero-Silis (Guimaraes Lab), Adrivit Mukerjee (Kamperman Lab), and Corniek Post (Loos Lab).

The "Bert de Boer Poster Prize" for the best poster presentation, an award of 1500 Euros to be spent on attending a scientific conference, was awarded to Luc Assink, a PhD researcher in the lab of Ronnie Hoekstra in Groningen and at ARCNL. The jury stated: "The jury of the Bert de Boer poster prize was impressed by the many very good posters, and even more by the total beehive that was buzzing in front of all posters during each poster session. For the prize, the jury selected the contribution by Luc Assink, who had a very clear poster and who also excelled in interactive dialogue in front of it. The poster had the title 'Can surface roughness explain the absence of a prominent single-collision peak in the keV heavy-ion scatter off a polycrystalline Ru surface?' and presented a clear scientific challenge, the tests that were performed for solving this puzzle, the collaboration with theory, and the importance and impact of the work."

Continuing the somewhat younger tradition, we also awarded the Wouter Roos Dancing Award to Akram Abbasnia Bazeh of the Giuntoli Group.