The afternoon started with an inspiring workshop round. Workshops were organised about topics like ‘From fundamental research to medical applications’ (Mara Soares Senghi (Physics & Astronomy) and Renate Baumgartner (Athena)), ‘Collaborating in large consortia & public-private partnerships’ (Paul de Vries, IXA-GO), ‘More focus on resilience and higher defense spending’ (Jeroen Koelemeij (Physics & Astronomy)), ‘Demonstration smart systems for education’ (Natalia Silvis-Cividjian and Elias Groot (Computer Science)), ‘8-8-4: Letting go of the boundaries’ (Boukje de Gooijer) and two tours from the Technology Center Precision Mechanics and Engineering Group and Electronics Engineering Group in the new VO Research building.
After the workshop, the faculty prizes were awarded. We congratulate all the winners with their awards!
Master's thesis Award – Roy Pontman – MSc Hydrology
- Motivation: In response to the devastating July 2021 floods in Limburg's Geul catchment, Roy aimed to create a more effective early warning system.
- Innovation: Roy enhanced an existing model to create a refined tool that predicts not only water volume but also the specific locations where a flood will cause damage.
- Impact: The system provides a valuable three-day advance warning with highly detailed geographic resolution, significantly improving emergency preparedness and response capabilities.
Master's thesis Award – Thijs Raymakers - MSc Computer Science
- Objective: Thijs proved that a theoretical security risk in widely-used cloud server computer processors (CPUs) could be practically exploited by hackers, moving it from a perceived limited threat to a real vulnerability.
- Innovation: He ethically exploited the weakness on live servers (Google Cloud and Amazone Web Services), using a cache memory leak to successfully steal and transfer data from one user to another in a professionally managed environment.
- Impact: After reporting his findings, the companies issued security patches. His work was publicly praised by their engineers, and he received a record €150,000 bug bounty from Google for the discovery.
Education Impact Award – Plato’s Garden
Team Maria Torralba, Karen Verduij, Wouter Buursma, Katinka Quintelier, Sjoerd Kluiving, Scott Dalby, Serxia Lage Arias, Jaro Pichel
- Initiative: A multidisciplinary VU team develops nature-based teaching activities to integrate outdoor experiences directly into the academic curriculum.
- Educational Goal: Named "Plato’s Garden," the program aims to foster explicit environmental awareness, using nature to help students critically reflect on the connection between their coursework and the natural world.
- Outcome: It employs contemplative activities like guided walks to add sensory experience layers to learning, thereby stimulating critical thinking, reflection, and peer dialogue.
Education Impact Award – Group-based Internships for better training at lower costs
Team Group-Supervised Internships: Klaus Linkenkaer-Hansen, Arthur-Ervin Avramiea, Marina Diachenko
- Motivation: Driven by didactic innovation, workload issues, and financial pressures in higher education, Klaus's team identified that the traditional internship model caused delays, limited supervision, high staff workload, and poor student interaction.
- Redesign & Collaborative Approach: They redefined the internship's goals to mirror real-world research, creating mixed-background student groups. This allowed for interdisciplinary collaboration, such as biomedical students using tools developed by computer science peers, collectively working toward publishable papers.
- Implementation: The new framework uses a clear checklist of learning objectives for student progress tracking and consistent evaluation. Internships are now conducted in a cohort-based setting with structured peer feedback and group dynamics to improve deadline adherence and supervision.
Education Impact Award – ASE Lab
Natalia Silvis, Joshua Kenyon, Elias Groot
Team: Max Gallup (Computer Science), Rob Limburg (Beta Electronics Engineering Group), Niels Althuisius (Beta Electronics Engineering Group), Joost Rosier (Precision Mechanics and Engineering Group), Frans Hendriks (Precision Mechanics and Engineering Group), Rob van Hoven van Genderen (Faculty of Law)
- Collaborative & Hands-On Learning: This initiative brings together staff from the department of Computer Science, Technology Center, and Faculty of Law to give students practical experience in building and programming robotics and automated systems.
- Holistic Education: The VU Autonomous Systems Engineering Lab (ASE lab) broadens students' perspectives by integrating critical questions about the societal, ethical, legal, and economic implications of the technology they develop.
- Proven Excellence: The project's success is validated by competitive achievement, most notably the VU's victory in the 2024 NXP Cup international robotics competition focussing on autonomous racing.
Research Team Award:
The Fungal Team: Tom Shimizu, Vasilis Kokkoris, James Weedon, Loreto Oyarte Galvez, Sander van Otterdijk, Rachael Cargill, Victoria Terry, Marije van Son
Toby Kiers (nominator)
Catch phrase: After having won nearly every prize to win, it is now the time to put the spotlight on the team (behind the success).
- Objective: This team is pushing the frontier of fungal science, integrating cell biology, biophysics, fungal culturing, microfluidics, and robotic imaging into a single, collaborative research programme that resolves how soil fungi function, adapt, and regulate carbon and nutrients across scales.
- Diverse team: The team is both diverse on a interdisciplinary (from Physics & Astronomy to AMOLF and A-LIFE), international (7 different countries), gender (50/50) and career level (from PhD to lab technician and full professor) perspectiveIt is really the diversity that makes the strength of this team.
- Impact: The impact of the team’s research is there both on a fundamental and societal level by addressing key questions in plant biology, soil ecology, and climate science, and at the same time providing insights for sustainable agriculture, soil carbon storage and long-term ecosystem stability. The societal impact is also reflected in visibility in the media, in museum exhibitions and in secondary schools, where there is direct contact with teachers.
Valorisation Award
Team Weekend of Science: Volha Chukhutsina, Jordi Dahlberg, and Melike Hocaoglu
- Organisation: they organised VU Amsterdam's contribution to the national Weekend of Science 2025, engaging nearly 1,000 visitors with interactive demonstrations and talks from a substantial number departments of our faculty and the hospital.
- Public Engagement & Impact: The event achieved significant external visibility of our faculty through strong media attention and fostered internal collaboration across disciplines, showcasing how public engagement builds trust in science.
- Broader Significance: This initiative demonstrates how public engagement activities can meaningfully connect research with society
Valorisation Award
Somphos Vicheth Som, PhD candidate, department of Health Sciences
- Critical Research Finding: Somphos PhD research, conducted with UNICEF, revealed that drinking water sources classified as 'improved' are often still heavily contaminated.
- Direct Policy Impact: This work led to a revision of a key UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator to explicitly include water quality testing, altering global monitoring, policy, and investment strategies for water and child health.
- Societal Impact: Her research stands as a strong example of valorisation through co-creation, demonstrating how academic work can directly improve societal outcomes and measurement frameworks.
Organisation Award
Team Examination Organisation: Andy Chan, Marion Bruinhard, Jeroen Lases, Josje Visser, Sakina Amensour
Core Support Role: The team provides essential support for written and digital assessments, working diligently behind the scenes to ensure the integrity of the exam process and that students can successfully earn credits and graduate.
- Operational Dedication & Flexibility: characterised by boundless service and extreme flexibility, the team manages significant logistical and technical challenges, often working extended hours from early morning until late evening during peak exam periods to accommodate ad-hoc changes.
- Collaborative & Proactive Coordination: the team that is always approachable and available to colleagues from central services such as SOZ, IT and FCO to contribute ideas, collaborate and work together.
We would like to thank all workshop leaders and the organisation committee for making this Faculty Afternoon possible.