Dr. Vera Giulimondi & Dr. Isaac Daniel

EFCATS proudly announces that in 2025 two EFCATS Best PhD Thesis Awards have been awarded. The differences between the two award winners were extremely small and judged on originality, scientific excellence, and impact. After two rounds of reviewing these two thesis scored so close that it was decided to award both of them with the EFCATS PhD award.

The recipients of the award are:

Dr. Vera Giulimondi: she conducted her PhD at the Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering (D-CHAB), ETH Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Javier Pérez-Ramírez. Her thesis, "Towards atomic precision in heterogeneous catalyst design", delivered transformative insights into single-atom catalysts (SACs), including safer, mercury-free alternatives for industrial acetylene hydrochlorination and novel synthetic strategies for high-loading SACs with atomic-level control. The award recognizes her pioneering contributions to sustainable catalyst engineering and her deep mechanistic understanding that bridges fundamental science and industrial relevance.

Dr. Isaac Daniel: he completed his PhD, entitled "The Co-Operative Redox Enhancement Effect: Origin, Mechanism and Scope" at Cardiff University under the supervision of Prof. Graham Hutchings, focusing on a novel catalytic phenomenon termed Cooperative Redox Enhancement (CORE). His pioneering work unraveled how bimetallic systems can bridge electro- and thermo-catalysis, offering new design principles for more efficient catalytic processes—an achievement recognized through multiple high-impact publications and international collaborations.