Minister of Science awarded another round of scholarships to outstanding young scientists. The awards have been conferred to young scientists who conduct high-quality innovative research and who have an impressive record of prestigious scientific achievements on an international scale.
Among the awardees were Tomasz Steifer PhD from the Department of Experimental Mechanics IPPT PAN and Hossein Darban PhD from the Department of Mechanics of Materials IPPT PAN.
This year’s edition brought 1708 wniosków scholarships applications. The minister has given the total amount of 228 scholarships for the outstanding scientists, including 32 for doctoral students, shortlisted in the competition supervised by an expert advisory board.
The best young researchers from IPPT PAN:
Tomasz Steifer, PhD is a computer scientist employed at the Institute, where he works as an assistant professor. His research is motivated by classic philosophical questions, particularly in the field of epistemology, such as understanding how and in what sense it is possible to gain knowledge of the world around us. T. Steifer looks at these problems through the lens of mathematical theories, as related to specific formal concepts and applies mathematical methods to study them. In specialized terms, he published papers on mathematical logic, theoretical computer science, computational learning theory, artificial intelligence, and social choice theory.
T. Steifer studied at the University of Warsaw, simultaneously pursuing interdisciplinary studies within the College of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities and neuroinformatics at the Faculty of Physics. He defended his PhD in computer science in 2020 at the Institute of Computer Science of the PAS. After completing his PhD, he spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Mathematical and Computational Engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data. He also spend some periods of time at the Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique (funded by the French government scholarship), the University of California, Berkeley (Miniatura grant), and the University of Bristol (EPSA grant).
Tomasz Steifer has been associated with the Institute since 2013, initially as an intern, then as a technical staff member in a POIG grant, and since 2021 as an assistant professor. Currently, he leads his own Fondecyt Postdoctorado grant funded by the National Agency for Research and Development of Chile.
Hossein Darban, PhD earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from one of Iran's leading universities, the Iran University of Science and Technology. He then moved to Italy to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Genoa, specializing in multiscale modeling of delamination fracture in multilayered structures (2014–2018). Following his Ph.D., H. Darban continued his research at the University of Genoa and the University of Naples Parthenope (2018–2020). Since 2020, he has been affiliated with IPPT PAN, currently serving as an Assistant Professor. His interdisciplinary research focuses on experimental, analytical, and numerical modeling of structures and materials across multiple scales. Hossein Darban has contributed to the field through publications in high-impact journals, receiving numerous citations from researchers worldwide. He has also served as a member of the editorial board for the journal Composite Structures, acted as the principal investigator of a SONATA project (NCN), and collaborated with renowned scientists.
Congratulation to our young and talented researches!
Fot.: Tomasz Steifer and Hossein Darban
