Award winners from the International Conference on Diamond and Carbon Materials 2014

The 25^th edition of the International Conference on Diamond and Carbon Materials attracted 350 participants coming from 41 different countries. During four days, 20 invited lectures were given, 97 contributed oral and 218 poster presentations. Special topics were highlighted in one of 4 Focused Sessions which are meant to bring rapidly moving fields to the attention, like Graphene or Carbon Nanomaterials for Bioelectronics and Neuroprosthetics, or to revisit longstanding subjects that have seen exciting new developments, such as Carbon Electrochemistry and Diamond Surface-Related Effects.

Active participation through presentations, questions, and discussions created a very lively atmosphere. The presented results were of high scientific quality, resulting in many exchanges of ideas, which is surely the key to success for every scientific gathering.

A scientific community can only flourish if young researchers enter the field with new and innovating ideas, interacting with the experts on the different materials that are featured at the meeting. With more than a quarter of the attendees being junior researchers, diamond and carbon research is looking at a bright future! To stimulate and reward the work of the next generation of scientists, several awards were handed out.

The Elsevier DCM Young Scholar Award wants to recognize researchers in the early stage of their career. The four finalists, whose work was part of the oral programme of DCM 2014, were judged by the Organising Committee on their merits through a related poster presentation. This led to two Gold and Silver Award winners. Congratulations to:

• Y. Doi (Osaka University, Japan - Gold)
• A. Marechal (Université Grenoble Alpes & CNRS/Institut Néel - Gold)
• W.S. Yeap (Hasselt University, Belgium - Silver)
• H. Kanazawa (Keio University, Japan - Silver)

The US Navy Award for Researchers of the Future offered young poster presenters the chance to compete for three best poster awards. After thorough discussions among the Poster Session Chairs, felicitations were at order for:

• M.Y. Buyanova (Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia)
• K. Ichikawa (Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan), and Y.O. Ojiro (Tohoku University, Japan)

Based on the above, it’s clear DCM 2014 played its role as annual core platform where the diamond and carbon community can gather. Let’s meet again next year, in Bad Homburg, Germany!