Two PhD Thesis Prizes to ERC-DOC Marta De SIMONE

Prize for the best PhD thesis of the year from SF2A and from UGA
Congratulation Marta!

It is with great pleasure that we report the announce of two PhD prizes assigned to one member of the DOC group, Marta De Simone.
She has been awarded of two very prestigious prizes:
(i) The award for the best PhD Thesis of the year 2023 by the French Astronomical Society (SF2A).
(i) The award for the best PhD Thesis of the year 2023 in the Physics Doctoral school in the University of Grenoble Alpes (UGA).
Her dissertation work, "Hot corinos : the early organic molecular enrichment of the planet formation zones," was carried out under co-advisors Prof. Cecilia Ceccarelli (Université Grenoble Alpes) and Dr. Claudio Codella (INAF-Arcetri Observatory) in the ERC DOC framework.

Her work focuses on the early enrichment of organic molecules in hot corinos, at the heart of star-forming regions. The study of these regions has led Marta de Simone to adopt a variety of approaches: from the analysis of observations, to radiative transfer modelling, to the dynamics of jets and shock waves.
Her thesis work makes innovative contributions to the field of astrochemistry, notably by extending the analysis of molecular spectroscopy to the radio wave regime, less impacted by dust extinction. Thus, one of Marta de Simone’s most important contributions was to show that millimeter observations could not be analyzed by assuming dust to be optically thin, as this leads to an underestimation of molecular abundances, and a misclassification of sources.
The manuscript of the thesis can be found here: Marta De Simone’s PhD Thesis

Currently, Marta De Simone is an independent Fellow Researcher at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, Germany. She is carrying out her project aimed at revealing the chemical nature of hot corinos with a multi wavelength approach and using state-of-the-art interferometers, as VLA and ALMA, with an eye on the upcoming cm facilities, ngVLA and SKA.

Beyond the scope of her work, the SF2A board appreciated the exceptional quality of her thesis manuscript, whose introductory parts attest to her perfect mastery of her subject, while the presentation of the results, and in particular their limitations and prospects, shows great maturity. 

On the other hand, the UGA Academic Thesis Prize, has been given to ten UGA doctors (to Marta De Simone for the Physics doctoral school) whose thesis work has been judged to be of outstanding quality.

Updated on 8 June 2023