The winners of the 2020 CMS Thesis Award are Matteo Defranchis (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY and University of Hamburg), Cristina Martín Pérez (Institut Polytechnique de Paris) and Thorben Quast (RWTH Aachen).

Every year since 2000, the CMS Thesis Award Committee has recognised and rewarded excellence in research by CMS PhD students. Any thesis written on a CMS-related topic is eligible for nomination; this includes physics analysis, simulation, computing, detector development and engineering. This year’s selection committee (28 CMS scientists appointed by the CMS Collaboration Board) faced the difficult task of choosing the three winners from a total of 24 nominations. The theses were judged on clarity of presentation, originality and impact of the research work.

The award includes a plaque of recognition and a proposal to have the thesis endorsed by CMS for publication in the Springer Theses series, which recognises exceptional PhD theses in the physical sciences. 

For more information on the laureates and their theses, visit the CMS website.