Awards
Each year, The Faculty of Science at University of Gothenburg recognizes three achievements. These are awarded with one of three prizes – the Research Prize, the Thesis Prize and the Educational Prize.
Research Award
The Research Award is given for developing a research line that significantly contributes to novelty of the research at the Faculty of Science. The award holder will receive a diploma and a prize of 250.000 SEK for research.
Research Award 2024: Sebastiaan Swart
Department of Marine Sciences
Motivation for the award:
Sebastiaan Swart’s research has shed new light on the intertwined mechanics of ocean physics and exchange of heat and carbon across the ocean-atmosphere interface in the Southern Ocean. He has introduced cutting-edge autonomous observation platforms and modeling approaches that are revolutionizing the way we collect ocean data and thereby our understanding of the ocean-climate system. He has built an extensive international network, plays a significant role within the scientific community, and contributes to science-to-policy impacts through ocean-climate reports.
His nurturing, kind nature has ensured that not only leading researchers have access to his laboratory, but also students and researchers from developing countries. His unique tools, insights, and influence reach well beyond his closest collaborators.
Sebastiaan Swart embodies our faculty’s core values of international collaboration, research excellence, public engagement, and respect for the next generation. He is a true inspiration within and outside his community of polar ocean science.
Doctoral Thesis Award
This award is given for successful and novel research that has been presented in a well written thesis. The award holder will receive a diploma and a prize.
Doctoral Thesis Award 2024: Oskar Allerbo
Department of Mathematics
Motivation for the award:
Oskar Allerbo's thesis reflects a deep scientific curiosity regarding the connection between machine learning- and AI-methods and statistics. In this thesis, Oskar has developed methods for increasing the interpretability of neural networks. He has also proposed Elastic Gradient Descent, a methodological work centered on the link between gradient descent with early stopping and ridge regression, and similarly coordinate descent and lasso regression. Oskar has investigated kernel ridge regression and introduced kernel gradient flow. He has here shown that, by using a time-varying bandwidth, one observes a double descent behaviour, as is frequently seen for neural networks.
Taken together, Oskar's thesis has contributed to new insights in how complex neural networks learn by coupling these to classical statistical methods.
Oskar is passionate about his research but is also dedicated to the academic environment as a whole. Oskar has represented the PhD students in the research education board at the science faculty and has engaged in first cycle education as a lecturer and course examiner.
The Pedagogical Award
The Faculty of Science’s Pedagogical Award is awarded annually to focus attention on good efforts within education. The award consists of a SEK 100.000 operational contribution.
After 2012 The Pedagogical Award transformed from being an Award for the entire university to be an Award at each Faculty.
Pedagogical Award 2024: Zareen Abbas
Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology
Motivation for the award:
Zareen Abbas is a highly valued teacher among both students and colleagues. He teaches in the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology and is also involved in teaching in the Department of Conservation. In addition, he contributes to programme development in Conservation, Pharmacy and Chemistry.
Zareen has adapted his teaching in the conservation programme to the interdisciplinary content and problem-oriented pedagogical approach of the programme. The conservation of historical artefacts and environments requires good knowledge and skills in chemistry.
Zareen is a responsive teacher with great integrity. He recognises the specific conditions of his students and tailors his teaching to their needs. He makes sometimes difficult chemistry accessible and exciting.
The Synergy Award
The Synergy Award recognises positive efforts within the Faculty of Science’s community outreach. The award is in the form of a SEK 250,000 grant to the recipient’s department for appreciated and successful community outreach efforts. The Faculty’s 2021 award will be presented on 2 December.
Synergy Award 2024: Angela Wulff
Department of Biological & Environmental Sciences
Motivation for the award:
Angela Wulff is an outstanding researcher and teacher in marine botany with microalgae as a research topic. But in addition to this, Angela has a vision that the research and knowledge she possesses should also be used. In 2014, together with the entrepreneur Sofie Allert, she started the Swedish Algal Factory, where diatoms are grown for various biotechnological applications. They have already developed the basic substance to produce organic skin cream, but an even more exciting project is the development of a component of diatoms that can be used to increase the efficiency of solar cells.
Angela also has an extensive popular science activity with many appearances annually in various public contexts, including school visits. Her research in the Arctic and Antarctic is of great interest and is another fascinating part of her business.
Recently, Angela together with Ellen Schagerström started a podcast, "Algpodden", to increase public education about algae and clear up some misconceptions. The podcast has become very popular with over 9000 streams.
Angela is also a scientific advisor for UF GRALG, where four enthusiastic high school students cultivate microalgae. GRALG won the national competition for young entrepreneurs in May 2024 and will represent Sweden at the European level.