Borealis distributes Student Innovation Award 2009

01-27-2010: Borealis has selected the winners of its Student Innovation Award 2009. Launched in 2008, the award recognises the two most innovative research papers on polyolefins, olefins or melamine, one for a master’s degree and one for a doctorate graduate. A monetary award of EUR 5,000 for the doctorate degree graduate and one of EUR 3,000 for the master's degree graduate winner is granted to the winners along with an award and certificate.

The 2009 Student Innovation Award for the master’s degree graduate is awarded to Matteo D’Amato for his work on polymeric nanocomposite fibres. In his thesis, he studied the impact of introducing nanoparticles to polyolefin base high-performance fibres. Matteo D’Amato is Italian and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Trento last October.

The Innovation Award for the doctorate degree was given to Amir Jabri. His PhD thesis, which was sponsored by the Dutch Polymer Institute, was an experimental study of how the transition-metal catalysts used in polyolefin production function on a molecular level. Dr. Amir Jabri, a US citizen, graduated from the University of Ottawa, Canada in 2009 and currently works in the area of computational chemistry. He published his findings in the scientific journals, “Angewandte Chemie” and in the “Journal of the American Chemical Society”.

A jury composed of independent academics and Borealis representatives assessed the incoming abstracts and selected the winners from more than two dozen submissions. The jury’s decision stated that the contributions of Mr. D’Amato and Dr. Jabri are characterized by a combination of beautiful experimental works with excellent theoretical explanations.