The 2023 Master’s Thesis Prize of the Finnish Physical Society has been awarded to Tiina Minkkinen of the University of Helsinki, and was officially presented in the opening ceremony of Physics Days 2024. This award is given annually for an exceptional Master’s thesis in the field of physical sciences. It exists to support early-career researchers in Finland and acknowledge their excellent contributions to the field. The award consists of a €1000 prize, a plenary talk during the Physics Days opening ceremony, and one year of free membership to the Finnish Physical Society.
This year we received a significant increase in the number of submissions, highlighting the excellent work being carried out across the country. Tiina’s thesis, titled Observing gravitational waves from early universe phase transitions with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, illustrates her notable contribution to the international LISA project led by the European Space Agency. Tiina demonstrated deep knowledge of the field and a significant degree of independence, proven by her membership in the LISA consortium. You can read more about Tiina’s thesis in their blog post here.
We also award honourable mentions to two other researchers who made it to our final round of evaluation:
- Matias Eriksson (Tampere University) with the thesis titled “Talbot self-imaging with whispering gallery modes of multimode fibers.” You can read more about Matias’s thesis here.
- Simo Heikkinen (University of Eastern Finland) with the thesis titled “Matalakenttä-NMR-spektrometrin simulointi, rakentaminen ja testaus.” You can read more about Simo’s thesis here.
