Dr. Gareth Thomas Award

 

Award Overview

Established in 2015 between UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, this award honors the memory of Prof. Gareth Thomas: a great UC Berkeley materials scientist who contributed to materials education and research for fifty years. He achieved global recognition for his pioneering work on the advanced characterization of materials by transmission electron microscopy and for the development of novel high-strength steels.

About Gareth Thomas

Dr. Gareth Thomas, professor emeritus of UC Berkeley, was a leading Materials Scientist of the twentieth century and contributed to the creation of the academic discipline. He is best known for his groundbreaking contributions to the development of electron microscopy as a tool in Materials Science. He also contributed greatly to research on the structure and properties of materials, led scientific societies and technical journals in the field, and educated a generation of productive materials scientists. He was known for being driven, competitive, and for his great game of rugby.

Submission Rules

The selection of the award at UC Berkeley will be made from nominations submitted by the materials science faculty from UC Berkeley. Each nomination should be accompanied by a detailed nomination letter, copies of up to three publications co-authored by the nominee, and a complete CV of the nominee.

Award Details

1. This award will be given yearly to one deserving University of California, Berkeley student. The nominee should be a current doctoral student in good academic standing at UC Berkeley at the time of application.

2. The awardees will be selected by the student award committee, appointed by the Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The established practice for all of our committees applies: faculty on the student award committee should recuse themselves in the event they have a conflict of interest (i.e., if they nominate one of their students or are related to any of the nominees). 

3. Each nomination should be accompanied by a detailed nomination letter, copies of up to three publications co-authored by the nominee, and a complete CV of the nominee. The review committee will evaluate the nominations according to the following criteria:

                      a. Research contribution of the student, with an emphasis on journal publications.

                      b. Academic excellence, including number of courses and grades received by the student.

                      c. Integrity and spirit of cooperation/leadership of the student.

4. The awards committee and department staff will provide an announcement of the award application deadline and requirements to students.

5. Only one nomination is allowed per nominator.

Prize

A large GT head bust will be housed in the Berkeley MSE office with a plaque that lists the names of all winners. Individual GT head busts–created by Joop Gihaux–will be awarded to recipients until existing inventory is depleted. The recipient will receive a check . The GT winner will be announced by email each year, and the recipient will be awarded in person at the annual Berkeley MSE end-of-year reception where we celebrate all MSE awards.

About Joop Gihaux: Sculptor and Artistic Painter

Contrary to what his French surname assumes, Joop Gihaux is a real Dutchman! He was born and raised in the Netherlands. He worked and lived in Amsterdam until the turn of the century when he and his wife decided to move to France, where they bought a beautiful Maison de Maître in the Burgundy region. For Joop, this was the perfect place and environment to deepen his two passions: painting and sculpturing. Joop finally found the peace and time to devote himself to sculpturing in the French countryside. Joop has proven to be a talented painter and makes large, colorful, and very powerful abstract paintings. Joop started to sculpt in the Netherlands in the 1980s where he became a pupil of John de Bont, a well-known Dutch sculptor based in Amsterdam. Through the years, Joop developed his own style of sculpturing and in contrast to his paintings, his sculptures are less abstract. He enjoys creating portraits and busts of people, which requires a more realistic approach. His sculptures are powerful and express a rough beauty.

Joop was flattered to receive a request from Annelies Thomas in 2014 to create a portrait bust of her late husband, Professor Gareth Thomas, for the purpose of the Gareth Thomas Materials Excellence Award. Joop had never met Gareth and worked from photo material only- making this piece of art a true challenge! The bronze bust was cast by Kunstbronsgieterij De Groeve, in Merelbeke-Belgium.

Donors

University of California, Berkeley Donors

  • Alan Ardell ✝︎
  • D. Barber ✝︎
  • Mark Fredrick Carlson
  • Lutgard C. De Jonghe
  • Kannan Krishnan
  • Kenneth Kubarych
  • Kuo-Chung Liu
  • Subhash Mahajan ✝︎
  • William Nix
  • Srinivasa Ranganathan
  • Nancy Ravenzwaay-Gustin
  • Caroline Sunyong Lee
  • Hiroyuki Tokushige
  • Nicholas Wilson ✝︎
  • Annelies Zeeman

University of California, San Diego Donors

  • Renkun Chen
  • Vlado Lubarda
  • Sungho Jin
  • Xanthippi Markenscoff
  • Marc Meyers
  • Pedro Meyers
  • Sia Nemat Nasser ✝︎
  • Julie Weertman ✝︎
  • Annelies Zeeman
  • Bryan Huey

Recipients

Recipients 2024:

  • Jufei Wang, UC San Diego
  • Pedro Borges, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2023:

  • Muyang Lin, UC San Diego
  • Pravin Kavle, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2022:

  • Wonjun Yim, UC San Diego
  • Emma Vargo, UC Berkeley

Best Presentation Award 2022:

  • Maria Folgueras, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2021:

  • Audrey Velasco-Hogan, UC San Diego
  • Stefano Cestellos-Blanco, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2020:

  • Kevin Kaufmann, UC San Diego
  • Ruopeng Zhang, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2019:

  • Zezhou Li, UC San Diego
  • Justin Ondry, UC Berkeley 

Recipients 2018:

  • Zhenbin Wang, UC San Diego
  • Max Poschmann, UC Berkeley

Best Presentation Award 2018:

  • Sahar Saremi, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2017:

  • Shiteng Zhao, UC San Diego
  • Dohyung Kim, UC Berkeley

Best Presentation Award 2017:

  • Rachel Traylor, UC Berkeley
  • Shishir Pandya, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2016:

  • Eric N. Hahn, UC San Diego
  • Ruijuan Xu, UC Berkeley

Recipients 2015:

  • Steven Naleway, UC San Diego
  • Maarten de Jong, UC Berkeley

Questions?

Contact Medina Kohzad (medinakohzad@berkeley.edu)