School of Science awards best doctoral theses of 2019

The school of Science has announced its annual awards for doctoral dissertations for 2020.

The prizes go to the top 10% of doctoral dissertations from the past year, and has a cash prize of €3000. The dissertations are judged by their academic quality, their originality, and their impact.

Of the 59 dissertations approved by the school this year, 6 have been awarded prizes. Each department puts forward dissertations for selection, and the final decision on the best dissertations is made by the Dean.

The prize-winning dissertations were:

Dr. Alex Karrila, Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis 

Supervising professor and thesis advisor: Professor Kalle Kytölä

Dissertation: Conformally invariant scaling limits of random curves and correlations

The dissertation studies mathematically planar statistical-physics models, at critical temperature. Strongly symmetric structures emerge in their continuum limits, and they are described in the dissertation in terms of conformally invariant random curves and correlation functions.

Dr. Alex Karrilais currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, France.

Dr. Jere Mäkinen, Department of Applied Physics

Supervising professor: Professor Pertti Hakonen

Thesis advisor: Dr. Vladimir Eltsov, Aalto University

Dissertation: Dynamics and vortex structures in topological superfluid ³He at ultra-low temperatures and under confinement

In the dissertation, quantized vortices and their dynamics were experimentally studied, focusing on dissipation mechanisms in the zero-temperature limit and the structure of half-quantum vortices encountered in samples with restricted geometries.

Dr. Jere Mäkinen is currently working as a postdoctoral associate in Yale Quantum Institute, Yale University, USA.

Dr. Tuomas Ollikainen, Department of Applied Physics 

Supervising professor: Professor Mikko Möttönen

Thesis advisor: Professor David S. Hall, Amherst College, USA

Dissertation: Creation and dynamics of topological structures in Bose–Einstein condensates

In the dissertation, topological structures in Bose-Einstein condensates were studied both theoretically and experimentally.

Dr. Tuomas Ollikainenis currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in IQOQI Innsbruck, Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austria.

Dr. Teemu Kämäräinen, Department of Computer Science

Supervising professor: Professor Antti Ylä-Jääski

Thesis advisor: Dr. Matti Siekkinen, Aalto University

Dissertation:Understanding and Optimizing Delay-Sensitive Interactive Mobile Application Systems

The dissertation introduces new methods for characterizing, optimizing, and managing latency with interactive mobile multimedia applications. The results lay the foundation in understanding latency with such applications and are highly valuable for design and implementation of distributed real-time multimedia applications.

Dr. Teemu Kämäräinen is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Aalto University, Department of Computer Science.

Dr. Juho Piironen, Department of Computer Science

Supervising professor and thesis advisor: Professor Aki Vehtari

Dissertation: Bayesian Predictive Inference and Feature Selection for High-Dimensional Data

The dissertation develops new statistical methods for analysing high-dimensional data. These methods help to build models that give accurate and easily interpretable predictions.

Dr. Juho Piironen is currently working as a researcher in Curious AI.

Dr. Mikael Öhman, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

Supervising Professor and thesis advisor: Professor Jan Holmström

Dissertation: Design science in operations management: extracting knowledge from maturing designs

The dissertation is a methodological compilation of four research papers, each of which reports a Design Science-study in Operations Management. In the dissertation, it is argued that the nascent methodological debate on Design Science as a research approach in Operations Management should be based on and built around the concept of design maturity.

Dr. Mikael Öhman is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Aalto University, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management.