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. The prize is
sponsored by The Foundation for Support of Theoretical Physics.
The 2008 prize
was awarded to Mgr. Lenka Zdeborova, PhD
for the thesis Statistical physics of hard optimization problems; for more details 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 the Czech Technical University Council meeting, 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