To commemorate late Professor Václav Votruba,
the founder of the modern Czech theoretical physics, the Doppler Institute
has established a prize bearing his name, which is awarded annually to the
author of the best doctoral thesis in theoretical physics. Since its first years,
the prize was sponsored by the Foundation for Support of Theoretical Physics,
from 2013 on it is supported by the
Czech Technical University in
Prague.
The 2018 prize
was awarded to RNDr. Tomás Husek, PhD., for the thesis Some aspects of the low-energy QCD at the precision frontier; for more details click here
The 2017 prize
was awarded to Dr. Dalimil Mazac for the thesis Explorations in the conformal bootstrap; for more details click here
The 2016 prize
was awarded to Ing. Jakub Zelezny, PhD., for the thesis Electronic structure and magnetic properties of antiferromagnetic semiconductors and metals; for more details click here
The 2015 prize
was awarded to Ing. Jan Vysoky, PhD., for the thesis Geometry of membrane sigma models; for more details click here
The 2014 prize
was awarded to Dr. Nicolai Friis for the thesis Cavity mode entanglement in relativistic quantum information; for more details click here
The 2013 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Jaroslav Trnka, PhD.,
for the thesis Grassmannian origin of scattering amplitude; for more details click
here
The 2012 prize
was awarded to Dr. Sergej Moroz
for the thesis Few-body physics with functional renormalization; for more details click
here
The 2011 prize
was awarded to Dr. Steffen Gielen
for the thesis Geometric Aspects of gauge and spacetime symmetries; for more details click
here
The 2010 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Petr Marek, PhD.,
for the thesis Non-classicality of quantum states: decoherence and purification; for more details click
here.
The 2009 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Ludovit Liptak, PhD,
for the thesis Aspects of thermodynamics nad confinement in the lattice formulation of QCD; for more details click
here.
The 2008 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Lenka Zdeborova, PhD,
for the thesis Statistical physics of hard optimization problems; for more details click
here,
for a published version of the thesis click
here.
The 2007 prize
was awarded to Mgr.
Miroslav Jezek, PhD, for the thesis Quantum measurement and reconstruction
with applications in optics; for more details click
here.
The 2006 prize
was awarded to Ing. Michal Malinsky, PhD,
for the thesis Quark and lepton masses and mixing in supersymmetric grand
unified theories; for more details click
here.
The 2005 prize
was awarded to Dr. Daniele Oriti
for the thesis Spin foam models of quantum spacetime; for more details click
here.
The 2004 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Katerina Nemcova, PhD,
for the thesis Solvable models of quantum systems with
non-trivial geometry; for more details click
here.
The 2003 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Jaromír Fiurasek, PhD,
for the thesis Conditional generation, reconstruction and cloning of quantum
states of light; for more details click
here.
Rules of the contest
The prize is awarded officially every year on December 19 for the best theoretical-physics
doctoral dissertation defended during the three previous academic years;
it is handed over at a festive opportunity, usually shortly before that date.
The prize comes with an (indivisible) financial award of 50000
Czech crowns (before tax). In addition to the main prize, the jury may distinguish
other presented work.
The contest is open to everybody independently of his or her university
or institute provided his/her age does not exceed thirty years at the moment
of the application*. It is considered as a preference if the work follows
the scientific legacy of Professor Votruba.
The deadline for applications in the running
year is . A written application
together with personal data, a copy of the thesis, and a document confirming its successful defence should be
submitted to the steering committee of the contest. The candidate should
also submit an electronic version, preferrably in a pdf form. He or she may
attach copies of the referee reports; the jury has the right to choose additional referees to evaluate the submitted theses.
The contest takes place if at least three theses are presented.
In case of a lesser number of applications the works are automatically
transmitted to the next-year contest.
The Doppler Institute pledges to assist at advertising the
winning results.
Contact addresses
All correspondence should be either passed through a member of the steering committee or sent to one of the following
addresses:
Votruba Prize Committee, Department of Theoretical Physics,
NPI AS CR, 25068 Rez near Prague
Doppler Institute, FNSPE CTU, Brehova 7, 11519 Prague 1
