Awards for Physical Chemistry Students
During the week of 14–18 September 2026, two students from the Department of Physical Chemistry, Cristina Sobrino Fernández and Jan Polena, both members of Prof. Petr Slavíček’s group (photox.vscht.cz), received Best Poster Awards at international theoretical chemistry conferences!
Cristina Sobrino Fernández is a second-year PhD student from Spain who has already won three Best Poster Awards and one Best Talk Award during her first year of doctoral studies, including this September. In Prof. Slavíček’s group, she works within the prestigious international Lumiere Doctoral Network on “Time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of chromophores at the ab initio level.”
She received awards at:
- Faraday Discussions 2026 (Best Poster Award)
- WavemiX 2026 (Best Poster Award)
- Lumiere Network Spring School 2026 (Best Poster Award)
- XVI. Conference of Young Researchers in Atomic and Molecular Physics (Best Talk Award)
Jan Polena received a Best Poster Award at the 62nd Symposium on Theoretical Chemistry (STC 2026), a well-established conference in the theoretical chemistry community, for his poster “Can a solvated electron reach the reactant?”
He presented results from a collaboration with Dr. Juraj Fedor’s experimental team investigating how electron-induced chemistry can be efficiently carried out in solution – a particularly challenging process due to the interaction of electrons with the vapor phase.
Congratulations to both Cristina and Jan!
