*Scroll to the bottom of the page for the photo album!*
Thursday 2 April 2026 we hosted our annual award ceremony at HAL4 aan de Maas. The event was hosted by our dean, prof. dr. Esther Rozendaal and attended by over 70 people.
In between award presentations, dr. Jeff Handmaker and prof. dr. Irene van Staveren held an inspirational talk about protecting your academic freedom as a PhD candidate.
Also Esther Rozendaal took the opportunity to put the spotlight on the PhD officers of the faculties and institutes and to thank them for their efforts for the graudate school and their PhD candidates.
We closed the event with social drinks and bites. Overall, we feel we had a very successful event and were happy and grateful that we were able to share this with the PhD candidates and supervisors from our faculties. If you were present at the ceremony, it would mean a lot if you could rate the event to help us improve!
A special thanks to all who submitted their work, or nominated a colleague or supervisor this year.
It is greatly appreciated and of great value to our school and community.
Here are the nominees and winners for the EGSH Awards for PhD Excellence 2025!:
Nominees Best Article Award 2025:
The following 4 people have been nominated for writing the best article of 2025:
- Bram Hilkens (ESHCC) for the article "Mortality, morcellation, and the market: The impact of epidemic disease mortality on land distribution in a seventeenth-century-Holland village" published in 'The History of the Family'.
- Ilaha Abasli & Ahmed El Assal (ISS) for the article "Why are you not doing research in your home country? Dissecting expectations of southern researchers"
published in 'Development in Practice'. - Olga Rook (ESPhil) for the article "Public attitudes to potential synthetic cells applications: Pragmatic support and ethical acceptance" published in PLOS One.
And the award for Best article 2025 went to Ilaha Abasli and Ahmed El Assal!
Congratulations, Ilaha and Ahmed!
Nominees Best societal impact
Creating societal impact is a key priority for researchers at Erasmus University Rotterdam. PhDs can create societal impact by translating their expertise into practical applications, advocating for evidence-based policies, engaging in science communication, and leading transdisciplinary efforts to tackle the world's most pressing challenges. It’s great to see how our PhDs are becoming increasingly oriented at and successful in achieving positive societal impact through these activities. Their work can drive innovation, influence public opinion, inform policy, and inspire others to take action for positive societal change.
This year we received 2 submissions for our award for best societal impact, both by ESHPM:
- Roman Giling
- Mirjam Kalisvaart
The award for Best Societal Impact 2025 went to Roman Giling!
Roman Giling won the Best Societal Impact Award for his pivotal role in developing the Psychosegevoeligheid module on the public health platform Praten over Gezondheid. This innovative project translates lived experiences of individuals with psychosis into accessible, scientifically grounded resources, fostering awareness, empowerment, and dialogue around a highly stigmatised condition. By collaborating with mental health professionals, individuals with lived experience, and educators, Roman ensured the module’s wide societal reach, including its use in recovery academies and nursing education. His work exemplifies how academic research can be co-created and embedded in real-world applications to drive meaningful change. Roman’s dedication to bridging science and practice makes him a deserving recipient of this award.
The jury was impressed by his work and the impact he created.
Congratulations, Roman!
Nominees Best Poster Award 2025:
There were 8 submissions in this category: 6 from ESSB, 1 from ESHPM and 1 from ESPhil.
It was not easy to make a shortlist and pick a winner, because there were actually quite some creative posters with nice features about good and interesting research. But we found that 3 posters stood out in terms of clarity and visual appeal:
- “Guiding or guarding? Screen measures at home & teen well-being” by Mara Fennema (ESSB)
- “PARADOx Project: Can Parenting Advice Strengthen Family Functioning and Adolescent Well-Being? A Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)” by Rick van Logchem (ESSB)
- “Multidimensional support for families in poverty: Barriers and facilitators” by Dominique Troost (ESSB)
The award for Best Poster 2025 went to Rick van Logchem!
Rick's poster scored highly on several of our evaluation criteria, including symmetry, visual appeal, clarity, and legibility. The jury felt that, while the poster is colourful and creatively designed, it remains clear and effective in communicating Rick's research. It indicates effectively what the background of his study is, how he designed his research, and what his main findings are.
Congratulations, Rick!
Nominees Best PhD Colleague Award 2025:
It is very inspiring and heart-warming to see how often our PhD candidates help and support each other with their PhD trajectories, also in times of hardship. From all the people that perform an important social function in our PhD community, 5 were nominated for our best colleague award:
- Fanny Tallgren (ESHPM)
- Cindy T.T. Nguyen (ESHPM)
- Ying Chuck (ESSB)
- Aike Senna Dias-Broens (ESSB)
- Ellen van den Haute (ESHPM)
From all the nominees we chose Cindy T.T. Nguyen as the award winner!
Cindy was spoken to by her two colleagues Hedwig Blommenstein and Sven Nouwens, who also handed over the award to her.
They described her as the social driver and community-creator at ESHPM that really lifts up the spirit in the office. Always being the first one to come and say hello, she makes sure new colleagues feel welcomed. Last year, Cindy also took on a role in the yESHPM board, where she focused on bringing PhDs from different floors closer together. She has inspired her peers to put the same effort into maintaining the social, inclusive and fun working environment she has created.
Congratulations, Cindy!
Nominees Best PhD Supervisor 2025:
All our awards are equally important, but luckily the topic of PhD supervision has gained more attention in recent years because it turns out to be one of the most important factors for PhD wellbeing and success.
There are a lot of excellent supervisors who do everything in their power to make the project of their PhD students as productive and pleasant as possible. This was reflected by the large number of nominations for our best supervisor award.
- Chiara Cadeddu (ESHPM)
- Daniel R. Curtis (ESHCC)
- Delia Dumitrica (ESHCC)
- Esther de Bekker-Grob (ESHPM)
- Job van Exel (ESHPM)
- Josje Kok (ESHPM)
- Lieke Oldenhof (ESHPM)
- Loes Keijsers (ESSB)
- Matthias Wieser (ESSB)
- Michael Wayne (ESHCC)
- Minita Franzen (ESSB)
- Oane Visser (ISS)
- Ruth Van der Hallen (ESSB)
- Stefan Lipman (ESHPM)
At EGSH, we are proud that these supervisors are part of our community and that they are are setting an example to their colleagues of how proper supervision is done.
From all the nominees we chose Delia Dumitrica and Matthias Wieser as the award winners!
Due to her absence, Delia Dumitrica's award was handed out by Sumbal Bashir, one of her PhD candidates that nominated her. Sumbal spoke beautiful words on her appreciation for Delia's supervision and how she brought clarity, direction and a sense of possibility back into her work.
Matthias Wieser was handed over the award by his PhD candidate Asimina Aslanidou.
Asimina held a humorous and touching speech to Matthias, highlighting his immense support during the COVID period and the fact that his door is always open.
Congratulations, Delia and Matthias!
Nominees Best Thesis 2025:
We received 16 submissions for our best thesis award. Most submissions, 9 in total, came from ESSB. 6 submissions came from ESHPM, 1 submission came from ESHCC.
The submitted theses covered widely different topics, such as cinema and music, mental health and wellbeing, political engagement, and public values. We were truly impressed by the quality of all the research that is presented in the theses. It was not easy at all to make a shortlist and to select a winner for this award.
Eventually, however, by looking at multidisciplinary or multimethod excellence, and creativity and innovativeness, we made a shortlist of 3 theses:
- "Accounting for the start of life: shifting practices, costs and value in an IVF clinic" by Maura Leusder from ESHPM
- "Challenges in the Measurement and Interpretation of Risk-Related Behaviour and Brain Activity in Lab Studies" by Kristel de Groot from ESSB
- "Belonging and becoming. Supporting diverse student populations in the transition to higher education" by Pieter van Lamoen from ESSB
All of these theses present more than excellent work. It proved difficult this year to pick the most excellent thesis. So, according to our assessment, the winning thesis is:
"Accounting for the start of life: shifting practices, costs and value in an IVF clinic" by Maura Leusder from ESHPM!
Maura Leusder wins the Best PhD Thesis Award for her groundbreaking and interdisciplinary research that combined academic rigor with real-world impact. Her thesis stands out for its methodological innovation, integrating diverse approaches such as ethnography, process mining, time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC), and structural equation modeling. This combination allowed her to address complex healthcare challenges, such as cost reduction and improved patient outcomes, while also advancing theoretical debates across disciplines like Management Accounting, Sociology, Health Economics, and Medicine. The committee praised her ability to make technical topics accessible, her transdisciplinary collaboration with healthcare professionals, and her reflection on becoming a multidisciplinary researcher.
Maura’s work not only contributed to academic literature but also delivered tangible societal benefits, including reduced clinician workload and significant cost savings in Dutch fertility care. Her findings have been widely disseminated through peer-reviewed articles, national media, and educational programs, further amplifying their impact. As such Maura’s thesis exemplifies the Erasmus University Rotterdam’s mission of creating positive societal impact through innovative and multidisciplinary scholarship.
Congratulations, Maura!
Photo album 2025 EGSH Awards
