2025 ICTP-SAIFR PhD Prize in Classical Gravity and Applications

To stimulate the growth of a Latin-American community in the rapidly evolving research areas related to gravitational wave observations, ICTP-SAIFR is pleased to announce an annual competition for the  2025 ICTP-SAIFR PhD Prize in Classical Gravity and Applications.

This prize recognizes doctoral thesis research of outstanding quality and achievement in the area of classical gravity and its applications in gravitational wave physics, astrophysics and cosmology. The annual award consists of $1000 Brazilian reais and certificate, together with an invitation to visit ICTP-SAIFR.

Nominations (normally by the thesis advisor) will be accepted for any doctoral student (present or past) in any country in Latin America for work performed as part of the requirements for a doctoral degree. Nominees must have passed their thesis defense not more than 18 months before the nomination deadline of April 30 (i.e. defended their thesis after October 31, 2023 and before April 30, 2025). An individual can be nominated only once; however, an unsuccessful candidate will be carried over for one year.

Nominated candidates will be evaluated by an international committee including Vitor Cardoso (CENTRA/IST, U. Lisboa), Rodrigo Fernandez (U. Alberta), Walter Goldberger (Yale U.), Gabriela Gonzalez (Louisiana State U.) and Luis Lehner (Perimeter I.).

Nomination & Selection Process 

Deadline: April 30, 2025

The nomination package should be sent by the nominator to gravityprize@ictp-saifr.org and include:

1. Recommendation letter from nominator (normally the thesis advisor), detailing the contributions of the nominee and describing the nominee.

2. The thesis manuscript in PDF format in either English, Portuguese or Spanish.

3. A thesis summary of 2 pages in English prepared by the nominee.

4. Two additional letters of support, at least one from outside the nominee’s institution.

5. Nominee’s CV with list of publications.

Guidelines for recommendation letter writers:

1. Information on the writer and his/her connection with the nominee.

2. Explain the nominee’s personal scientific contribution and his/her skills known to the writer.

3. Specific anecdotes and examples are welcome, e.g. awards, special recognitions, etc.

4. Include contact information of the writer.

Announcement:

Announcement:

Winner:

• Gabriel Luz Almeida (UFRN, Brazil): Classical Amplitudes in Gravitational-Waves Physics
  

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):

• Haroldo Cilas Duarte Lima Junior (UFMA, Brazil): Challenging the Kerr hypothesis with scalar fields, tidal forces and shadows
• Josiel Mendonça Soares de Souza (UFRN, Brazil): Late-Time Cosmology with Third Generation Gravitational Waves Observatories
• Pedro da Silveira Ferreira (UFRJ, Brazil): Footprints in the harmonic space: The nature of the CMB dipole and the cold spot anomaly

2023 Workshop on Classical Gravity Program 

August 16 at Principia Institute as a part of  Gravitational Waves meet Amplitudes in the Southern Hemisphere Program

2:00 PM Luis Lehner (Perimeter Institute, Canada): Beyond General Relativity and the strongly gravitating/dynamical regime
3:00 PM Guilherme Brando de Oliveira (UFES, Brazil): The emergence of time in cosmological correlations
4:00 PM David Camarena (UFES, Brazil): Pushing the boundaries of modern cosmology: physics beyond the Copernican principle
4:30 PM Luis Felipe Longo Micchi (UFABC, Brazil): Prospective Sources of Gravitational Waves for  Third-Generation Ground-Based Observatories

2022 Workshop on Classical Gravity  https://www.ictp-saifr.org/cga2022/

2023:

Winner:

• David Camarena (UFES, Brazil): Pushing the boundaries of modern cosmology: physics beyond the Copernican principle

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):

• Guilherme Brando de Oliveira (UFES, Brazil): Modified Gravity and Large Scale Structure Cosmology: a linear and non-linear treatment
• Luis Felipe Longo Micchi (UFABC, Brazil): Prospective Sources of Gravitational Waves for Third-Generation Ground-Based Observatories

2022

Winner:

• Iara Ota (UFABC, Brazil): “Black hole spectroscopy: prospects for testing the nature of black holes with gravitational wave observations“

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):

• Caroline Guandalin (USP, Brazil): “Statistical techniques for future surveys: extracting fundamental physics out of the large-scale structure“
  
• Eduar Becerra (U. Industrial de Santander-Bucaramanga, Colombia): “Geodesics in space-time of self-gravitating dark matter and its application to stellardynamics around the Galactic center“

2021

Winner:

• Carlos Mauricio Correa (U. of Cordoba, ARG): “Cosmic voids as cosmological laboratories“

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):

• Marcos A. Argañaraz (U. of Cordoba, ARG): “Estructura y Características de Agujeros Negros Aislados con Momento Angular“
  
• Jorge Enrique García Farieta (U. Nacional de Colombia, COL): “Constraints on alternative cosmological models from clustering and redshift-space distortions“
• Leonardo Giani (UFES, Vitória, BRA): “Accelerated expansion as manifestation of gravity: when Dark Energy belongs to the left“