Mariana Moreira, a former GoLP member and currently a postdoctoral researcher at CERN working on the AWAKE experiment, has been awarded the prestigious John Dawson Thesis Prize at the Laser-Plasma Accelerators Workshop (LPAW) 2025. The award was presented during the conference, which was held from April 14 to 18 at Hotel Continental in Ischia, Italy.

Mariana carried out her PhD between Instituto Superior Técnico, under the supervision of Jorge Vieira, and CERN under the supervision of Patric Muggli and Bernhard Holzer. Her thesis was recognized for its outstanding contributions to the field of plasma accelerators driven by laser or particle beams. As part of the award, Mariana also gave a short presentation on her work during the conference’s final day.

She is the second GoLP member to receive this distinction, following Marija Vranic, who won the prize in 2017 and is currently an Assistant Professor at IST. Many congratulations to Mariana on this remarkable achievement!