Aalto University Grad Receives Distinguished Thesis Prize
The European Centre for Advanced Studies in Thermodynamics (ECAST) on June 14 awarded Aalto University graduate Bayan Karimi with a distinguished thesis prize. The award recognizes a PhD thesis of a promising young researcher covering all branches of thermodynamics, from applied and experimental to the most theoretical.
ECAST awarded Karimi with the Ilya Prigogine Prize at the Joint European Thermodynamics Conference in Salerno, Italy, during which Karimi gave an oral presentation of her work. Her thesis belongs to the newly developed research area of quantum thermodynamics, which is anticipated to be an important basis in managing heat dissipation and measurements in quantum technologies and computing.
Karimi’s thesis experimentally and theoretically demonstrated phenomena and devices in quantum thermodynamics realised by superconducting and metal circuits on a chip at extremely low temperatures. She experimentally implemented an ultra-sensitive thermal detector reaching the ultimate noise level dictated by fundamental thermal fluctuations.
“I am very honoured to receive this prize acknowledging our work and the field we are working on,” Karimi said. “I want to thank my supervisor, professor Jukka Pekola, and the PICO research group at Aalto University, where the wonderful environment and the great experimental facilities were essential for this work.”
Karimi worked three years as a doctoral student in the Marie Curie training network Questech, and she defended her thesis in 2022. Her works have attracted attention internationally, and she has been an invited speaker in several international conferences.
The Quantum Technology Finland Centre of Excellence (QTF) awarded Karimi in 2020 the annual discovery prize as part of her doctoral work. In 2022, her doctoral thesis was awarded one of the best doctoral theses in the Aalto University School of Science.
In addition to the Ilya Prigogine Prize, Karimi also received the Bernhard Heß young researcher award from the University of Regensburg Foundation in Germany. The prize included the opportunity for Karimi to provide three guest lectures and a colloquium in Regensburg in July.
Karimi is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in the HelTeQ group led by professor Sabrina Maniscalco, as well in the PICO group at Aalto University led by Pekola.