Congratulations to the three winners of the 2016 Reaxys PhD Prize

Since 2010, The Reaxys PhD Prize has become the leading prize for PhD students in chemistry globally. It was founded with a vision of celebrating talented PhD students and recent graduates doing original and innovative research in synthetic chemistry.

The Reaxys PhD Prize attracts hundreds of submissions each year from all over the world. From these excellent candidates, 45 finalists are selected and invited to the Reaxys PhD Prize Symposium, which is a chance for them to meet each other as well as some of the club members from previous years and to present their research work.

Each year, ten short-listed finalists present their research to an audience of current finalists, club members, the members of the Reaxys Advisory Board, and some special guests. It’s their opportunity to make that final great impression that will put them in the winners’ circle. Three of the presenters are named equal winners at the end of the Symposium.

The winners were announced at the gala dinner that evening: Jamie Hicks (Jones group, Monash University), Jiheong Kang (Aida group, University of Tokyo) and Pascal Ellerbrock (Trauner group, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich)

This year, the short-listed finalists’ presentations were held in conjunction with the New Scientist Live in London. According to Professor Barrett from Imperial College London, choosing the three winners took considerable deliberation. “For all the candidates we took our time in evaluating how innovative and impactful their research is, how they chose to present it and how they answered our questions. There was much to discuss by the panel!”

The three winners were all grateful and even surprised to have been chosen given the incredible standard of the chemistry on display. Jamie said he was still in shock after the dinner: “All 10 talks today were so fantastic. I can’t believe I’ve won!” Jiheong was equally happy: “This is a very precious award. It is a great honour to get this.” Pascal couldn’t help grinning as he expressed his gratitude to the committee: “Thank you for choosing this research out of all of the outstanding contributions that we’ve seen here today.”

Each year, all 45 finalists are invited to join the Reaxys Prize Club community of inspirational and dedicated chemists that are connected with each other in a way that fosters collaboration. As former finalist Andy Chapman (Kingston University) explained in a recent interview “It’s a great network to be connected to. Starting out as an academic, it’s important to have a support network.”

Read more about the Symposium here.

About Reaxys

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