Stockholm Mathematics Centre Prizes for Excellent Doctoral Dissertation and Master Theses 2018/2019

Excellent Master Theses 

Cecilia Battinelli

Proton Arc Therapy Optimization

Cecilia Battinelli’s outstanding thesis deals with optimization problems arising in cancer treatment using proton arc therapy. Optimization methods are developed allowing a patient to be irradiated from multiple directions at lower energy levels, and providing improvements in both quality and treatment time. Battinelli thus makes a significant contribution to the design of new treatments that are expected to be used in a clinical setting in the future.

Dennis Öberg

Analyzing polynomial dynamical systems using algebraic methods

Dennis Öberg receives a prize for excellent work that takes an algebraic approach to obtaining qualitative information about dynamical systems defined by polynomial maps. The applicability of the methods is further illustrated by considering specific polynomial systems, such as chemical reaction networks. Öberg's thesis is very well written, clearly demonstrates deep understanding, and opens new avenues for further investigation.

Excellent Doctoral Theses

Susanna F. de Rezende 

Lower Bounds and Trade-offs in Proof Complexity

For important contributions to computational complexity theory, resolving several fairly long-standing open problems regarding different mathematical methods for reasoning about logic formulas, making connections also to communication complexity and combinatorial games on graphs.

Simon Larson 

Asymptotic and universal spectral estimates with applications in many-body quantum mechanics and spectral shape optimization

For a thesis with width as well as depth showing his remarkable ability to synthesize several mathematical disciplines, such as spectral theory, shape optimization and convex geometry, leading to new deep results.