ESET Science Award finalist from IMS SAS

Our colleague, exceptional researcher up to 35 years, Ing. Ladislav Valkovič, PhD., was selected among the finalists of the prestigious ESET Science Award. He works at the Department of Imaging Methods of the Institute of Measurement Science of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and at the Oxford Center for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research at Oxford University.

More information on selected finalists of the Outstanding Scientists Award can be found on the Foundation’s website ESET Science Award

For the third time, the ESET Foundation will recognize outstanding personalities of Slovak science for their scientific, research and pedagogical work. The evaluation committees selected fifteen ESET Science Award finalists in the categories of Outstanding Personality of Slovak Science, Outstanding Young Scientist under 35 and Outstanding University Teacher. We will meet the winners of the award on October 16, they will be announced during the gala evening, which will be broadcast live on TV channel Dvojka for the first time.

Every year, the ESET Science Award highlights the contribution of excellent scientists to Slovakia and the international community and brings to the public the irreplaceable importance and impact of scientific work. This year is in the spirit of the motto “science is hope”, which reflects the role of science in current events. “The pandemic and the challenges of recent months have repeatedly shown us how important it is to support the work of scientists and researchers. A systematic scientific approach makes it possible to distinguish truth from assumptions and fabrications, to be the voice of reason in a polarized society, and thus to overcome even the greatest challenges, ”explains Richard Marko, CEO of ESET.

In the final fifteen of the ESET Science Award, we present outstanding scientists, young scientific talents as well as university teachers. The winners in the main categories Outstanding Personality of Slovak Science and Outstanding Young Scientist under 35 will be selected from the finalists by an international commission composed of leading personalities of world science. The laureate in the category of Outstanding University Teacher will be decided by an evaluation committee made up of representatives of Slovak universities.

For the second year in a row, the Nobel Prize winner, legendary astrophysicist and leading expert in gravitational physics, Professor Kip Thorne, will chair the International Commission, which selects the winners in two main categories, and will personally attend the awards ceremony. He will be judged by other internationally acclaimed scientists – Fiona Watt, a biologist at King’s College London as director of the Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine; chemist and philanthropist Hana Dvořáková, who was involved in the birth of one of the most effective substances against the HIV virus and currently works at the University of Chemical Technology in Prague; Ralf Riedel, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Institute of Materials Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, and Tibor Krisztin, Professor of Mathematics at the Bolyai Institute of the University of Szeged.

The winners of the ESET Science Award are selected on the basis of a demanding evaluation process that takes into account a whole set of criteria, such as the contribution of their research to society, scientific performance, measurable scientometric data, participation in major international research projects, visibility of Slovak science and research abroad, or, in the case of university teachers, their pedagogical skills, innovation in teaching and student feedback.

Finalists in the category Outstanding Young Scientist under 35

• Matej Baláž – works at the Institute of Geotechnics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Košice. He deals with mechanochemistry, ie chemical reactions of substances in the solid phase.
• Mária Kováčová – works at the Institute of Polymers of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. She specializes in antibacterial polymeric materials and the development of new materials for 3D printing.
• Pavol Mikolka – works at the Martin Center for Biomedicine, at the Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University. He researches the pulmonary surfactant.
• Ivana Šišoláková – works at the Institute of Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Pavel Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. He is developing new types of electrochemical sensors for disease diagnosis.
• Ladislav Valkovič – works at the Institute of Measurement Science of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and at the Oxford Center for Clinical Magnetic Resonance Research at Oxford University. His research focuses on the metabolism of the heart and other internal organs and how to measure it non-invasively as quickly and accurately as possible.