65th Diploma Ceremony

The online and on-site 65^th Diploma Ceremony of the Research Master in Fluid Dynamics took place at the von Karman Institute this 2st of July 2021. Major part of the students were able to attend the ceremony online, some of them attended the ceremony online because of the current pandemic situation.

The ceremony started with Mr. Peter Grognard, Managing Director of the von Karman Institute who congratulated the graduates.

This was followed by the speech of his Excellency Pascal Heyman, Permanent Representative of Belgium to NATO who addressed a great speech to the students on behalf of the VKI Board of Directors. Dr. Bryan Wells, on behalf of NATO’s Science and Technology Organization, stressed the importance of VKI for the NATO countries. He underlined that climate changes is a major problematic for the security of future generation.

A special technical presentation has then be done by Dr. Elissavet Boufidi who completed his PhD thesis this year. He presented a unique research activity at VKI: "Development of methods for the characterization of turbulence in complex flows".

Dr. Fabrice Giuliani, CEO Combustion Bay One e.U. from Austria, who succeeded the research master in 1997-1998, shared his experience at the von Karman Institute with the Graduates.

The diploma distribution started with the awards. The awards and diplomas were distributed by Dr. Bryan Wells.

The Theodore von Karman Prize was attributed to Pedro Afonso Marques for his project entitled: "Experimental characterization and modeling of non-isothermal sloshing". He has been also awarded the Prince Alexandre of Belgium Award for the Best Presentation and received a gift from Her Royal Highness Princess Léa of Belgium.

Jan Van den Berghe was awarded the Belgian Government Prize. His project was entitled "Transient analysis of supersonic ejectors using 1D gas dynamics and deep learning".

The Excellence in Experimental Research has been given to Jan Van himbeeck for his project on "Experimental investigation of aero-vibro-acoustic coupling in space launcher applications" , while the Excellence in Numerical Research has been given to Lorenzo Vallisa for his work on "Radioactive particle dynamics and interactions with liquid metal coolant LBE within MYRRHA nuclear reactor".

We would like to congratulate the Graduates who received their diplomas:

with honours: Mohammed Al-Sailani, Joachim Balis, Lorenzo Da Valle, Grégory Delvaux, Erica Gallo, Leonidas Konstantinos Gkimisis, Emrah Güllü, Romain Hottois, Tomáš Levý, Pedro Afonso Marques, Claudio Miccoli, Aviva Opsomer, Nassim Razaaly, Daniel Stuntz, Lorenzo Vallisa, Jan Van Den Berghe, Jim Van himbeeck, Alperen Yildizeli

and

Ata Onur Başkaya, Simon Bergé, Raffaele Carandente, Carlo Casale, Utku Caylan, Rohan Chotalal, Nicolas Corthouts, William Fraga, Lorenzo Galieti, Tsvetelina Ivanova, Greyson Kale, Victor Lafaurie, Marcello Nitti, Riccardo Sala, Loïc Sombaert, Csaba Vigh, Hauke Witte

Feride Kutbay was also enrolled in the research master and has s uccessfully defended her project.

Victor Coulon, Rebeca Marini, Maxime Sanquer were also enrolled in the Research Master.

The Best Collaborative Award was given to Csaba Vigh by Prof. Mario Carbonaro, Honorary Director and vice-president of the VKI alumni Association, in the name of the alumni association.

The dean of the VKI faculty, Prof. Jeroen van Beeck announced that the Best PhD presentation award of the Phd Symposium 2021 was attributed to Fabio Pino for his work on "Prospects in machine learning-based flow control for liquid metal coating". the Best Pitch was attributed to Romain Poletti for his work on "Real-time optimization of bio-inspired wings using the deformable overset method and machine learning"

Finally, Mrs. Rebeca Marini, representative of the Research Master students, gave a vote of thanks to the guests.