Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research”
Award, Eligibility and its Privileges
The IAFSS Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” recognises the best research thesis at PhD and Masters levels, in all the fields related to fire safety science and engineering. There are three such Awards for the three IAFSS regions, Europe and Africa, Americas, as well as Asia and Oceania.
To be eligible for nomination, the nominee’s thesis must have been officially submitted to the university granting the degree for examination and nominated for the Award by the nominee’s supervisor, as described below.
Each recipient must deliver, at the Symposium, a paper drawn from his/her thesis. While not required, the recipient will be strongly encouraged to prepare a paper, as per submission guidelines of the Symposium, based on the material included in the thesis and not published in the Symposium or other peer reviewed archival publication. The Award consists of a plaque, a grant of US $2,000 to cover travel and sustenance related to the recipient’s attendance at the Symposium and free registration for the Symposium.
Nomination Process
The following documents need to be submitted:
- A letter of recommendation by the nominee’s supervisor not to exceed 2 pages;
- A pdf copy of the thesis (preferably in English; if not available, in its original language);
- An abstract of the thesis in English (no longer than three pages);
- A list of publications. The list should comprise journal articles (including those that have been submitted for publication, whether accepted or not), and conference publications (indicating the form of review; no review, by Abstract, by full paper). Publications in preparation or draft should not be listed;
- Pdf preprints or reprints of up to three best papers derived from the nominee’s thesis (conference papers can be included) can be submitted but are not compulsory.
- If the thesis is not written in English, at least one paper in English shall be submitted.
- Submission subject to confidentiality requirements should be accompanied by an explanation from the supervisor indicating which sections of the thesis cannot be made public or submitted for review. The requirement for the recipient to deliver a presentation at the 13thSymposium cannot be waived; therefore, this explanation has to include a clear indication of which sections will be presented at the Symposium.
Selection Considerations
Selection of the awardees will be driven by four criteria: the pertinence, quality, significance, and impact of the work. Only one thesis can be submitted for award from a given University or Institution. When more than one thesis is of sufficient quality for submission for the Award, a preliminary selection must be carried out locally and the nominee’s supervisor needs to explicitly describe in the letter of recommendation the local selection process. If more than one thesis is submitted by a single institution the nominators will be asked to withdraw the submissions voluntarily and explain the reasoning behind the selection. If more than one thesis remains by the submission date then none of the submissions from that institution will be considered.
The four criteria used to select the best thesis include:
- Pertinence: Is the thesis’ subject matter within the scope of the field of fire science and/or engineering?
- Quality: Are the methodologies applied in the thesis sound and correct? Is the thesis well written?
- Significance: Do the results of the thesis add to our present knowledge? Are the results new, accurate, useful and important?
- Impact: Do the results of the thesis have a broad impact in the fields of fire science and/or engineering?
Selection Body
The recipients of the IAFSS Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” will be selected by the IAFSS Awards Committee.
Past Recipients
IAFSS Best Thesis Award “Excellence in Research” was first presented at the 8th IAFSS Symposium at Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2005. Its past recipients are listed below:
2023:
- (Europe and Africa) Li Ma for the thesis, “Large-eddy simulation of purely buoyant diffusion flames” conferred by the Aix-Marseille University, advised by Dr. Fatiha Nmira from Electricité de France (EDF) and Jean-Louis Consalvi from Aix-Marseille University
- (Americas) Parham Dehghani for the thesis, “Burning Emulations of Condensed Phase Fuels Aboard the International Space Station” conferred by the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, advised by Prof. Peter Sunderland and Prof. James Quintiere
- (Asia and Oceania) Xiepeng Sun for the thesis “Experimental and Theoretical Study on the Ejected Facade Flame Behavior from Compartment Fires under Different Ventilation Conditions” conferred by the University of Science and Technology of China, advised jointly by Prof. Longhua Hu at USTC and Prof. Bart Merci at Ghent University
2021:
- (Europe and Africa) Eric V. Mueller for the thesis, “Examination of the underlying physics in a detailed wildland fire behavior model through field-scale experimentation” conferred by the University of Edinburgh, UK, advised by Dr. Rory Hadden and Prof. Albert Simeoni
- (Americas) Joshua D. Swann for the thesis, “A comprehensive characterization of pyrolysis and combustion of intumescent and charring polymers using two-dimensional modeling: a relationship between thermal transport and the physical structure of the intumescent char” conferred by the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, advised by Prof. Stanislav Stoliarov
- (Asia and Oceania) Yongzheng Yao for the thesis “Fire Behaviors and smoke transportation law of tunnel fires under confined portal boundaries” conferred by the University of Science and Technology of China, in collaboration with RISE Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), advised by Prof. Heping Zhang and A/Prof.Xudong Cheng at USTC and Prof. Haukur Ingason and Dr. Ying Zhen Li at RISE
2021 Honorable mentions:
- James L. Urban for the thesis “Spot ignition of natural fuels by hot metal particles” conferred by the University of California, Berkeley, USA, advised by Prof. Carlos Fernandez-Pello
- Francesco Restuccia for the thesis “Self-heating ignition of natural reactive porous media” conferred by Imperial College, London, UK, advised by Prof. Guillermo Rein
2017:
- (Europe and Africa) Cristian Maluk for the thesis, “Development and Application of a Novel Test Method for Studying the Fire Behaviour of CFRP Prestressed Concrete Structural Element” conferred by the University of Edinburgh, UK
- (Americas) Ali Tohidi for the thesis, “Experimental and Numerical Modeling of Wildfire Spread via Fire Spotting” conferred by Clemson University, USA
- (Asia and Oceania) Zihe Gao for the thesis “Studies on Characteristics of Confined Fire Plumes and Mechanism of Natural Smoke Exhaust by Shaft in Tunnel Fires” conferred by the University of Science and Technology of China in collaboration with Ghent University, Belgium
2014:
- (Europe and Africa) Dr Thomas Gernay, for the thesis titled “A multiaxial constitutive model for concrete in the fire situation including transient creep and cooling down phases,” Université de Liège, Belgium (2012)
- (Americas) Dr Kristopher James Overholt, for the thesis titled “Forward and Inverse Modeling of Fire Physics Towards Fire Scene Reconstructions,” The University of Texas at Austin, USA (2013)
- (Asia and Oceania) Dr Chao Zhang for the thesis titled “Reliability of Steel Columns Protected by Intumescent Coatings Subjected to Natural Fires,” Tongji University, China (2012)
2014 Honorable Mentions:
- Dr John Gales, for the thesis titled “Unbonded Post Tensioned Concrete Structures in Fire,” University of Edinburgh, UK (2013)
- Dr Mélanie Rochoux for the thesis titled “Towards a more comprehensive monitoring of wildfire spread Contributions of model evaluation and data assimilation strategies (Vers une meilleure prévision de la propagation d’incendies de forêt: Evaluation de modèles et Assimilation de données),” CNRS et École Centrale Paris, France (2014)
- Dr Steven Verstockt for the thesis “Multi-modal Video Analysis for Early Fire Detection (Analyse van multimodale video voor vroegtijdige branddetectie),” Universiteit Gent, Belgium (2012).
2011:
- (Europe and Africa) Angus Law, for the thesis titled “The Assessment and Response of Concrete Structures Subject to Fire”, The University of Edinburgh, UK (2010)
- (Americas) Christopher Lautenberger, for the thesis titled “Generalized Pyrolysis Model for Combustible Solids”, University of California, Berkeley, USA (2007)
- (Asia and Oceania) Kai Chen, for the thesis titled “Formation of Toxic Pollutants in the Thermal Decomposition of the Sulfenimide Fungicides”, The University of Newcastle, Australia (2011)
2008:
- (Europe and Africa) Markus Knobloch ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, PhD Thesis
- (Americas) Ali S. Rangwala, University of California, San Diego, USA, PhD Thesis
- (Asia and Oceania) Johannes A.W. Dimyadi, The University of Canterbury, NZ, Masters Thesis
2005:
- (Europe and Africa) Susan Lamont, The University of Edinburgh, UK, PhD Thesis
- (Americas) Amnon Bar-Ilan, University of California, Berkeley, USA, PhD Thesis
- (Asia and Oceania) Weng Wenguo, Waseda University, Japan, PhD Thesis
Dr Natalia Flores-Quiroz is a researcher with experience in fire safety engineering. She worked for five years as a fire safety engineer in the mining industry before joining academia. She holds a MSc in fire safety from Ghent University, and her PhD focused on Fire investigations in Informal Settlements. Currently she is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University, where her main research areas are reconstruction of incidents in low-income settlements (i.e., informal settlements, refugee camps) and wildland urban interface (WUI) fires.
Bronwyn Forrest is a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Waterloo, conducting multi-disciplinary research investigating human physiological response to fire exposure. Bronwyn graduated in 2017 with a BSc. Honours Kinesiology and in 2020 with a MASc. Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering (Heat Release Rate in Ventilation-Limited Furniture Fires) before merging her two degrees in her PhD research. As a senior graduate student in the Fire Research Group, Bronwyn spear-heads large-scale fire experiments, mentors junior graduate and undergraduate students, and has recently set-up a new ‘human exposure lab’ at the Fire Research Facility where she leads new research in that area. Since her induction into the world of fire science, Bronwyn has grown more and more passionate about the multi-faceted nature of emerging fire safety challenges. Through innovative research, she hopes to make meaningful contributions that help shape changes to fire safety over the course of her career.
Dr. (HDR) Eric Guillaume has worked in fire sciences since 1998. He formerly led the fire behaviour department of SNCF (French Railway), then changed company in 2005 to join LNE (The French National Laboratory for Testing and Metrology) as head of Fire safety studies department, and later as head of research for whole testing activities of LNE. Nowadays (since 2015), he works for Efectis France, first as Technical Director and more recently as General Manager of the company, leading one of the most important fire testing and fire safety engineering companies in Europe (With approx. 180 people and 28 M€ turnover)
Dr. Albert Simeoni is Professor and the Department Head of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is the WPI site director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC), an Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. Dr. Simeoni has served IAFSS by being chair or co-chair of the Wildland Fire track (2014, 2020 and 2023), Co-chair of the Awards Committee for the Best Thesis Awards (2023), Associate-Editor of Fire Safety Journal (2010-2015), member of the Editorial Board of Fire Safety Journal (since 2016), and Contributing Editor of Fire Safety Science News (since 2011).
Brian J. Meacham, PhD, PE (CT&MA), EUR ING, CEng (UK), FIFireE, FSFPE, is the Managing Principal of Meacham Associates. He develops risk-informed performance-based solutions to complex building and infrastructure challenges, provides peer-review services, and undertakes building and fire regulatory system studies. He also conducts research in these areas as well as in sustainable and fire resilient built environments and fire safety technologies. Brian has authored more than 300 publications, given more than 300 presentations and has been awarded more than $4M in research funding. His prior positions include Associate Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Principal at Arup, Technical Director and Research Director at SFPE, and fire safety engineer in Europe and the USA. Brian is Chair of the ICC Performance Code Committee, Chair of the NFPA Technical Committee on Fire Risk Assessment Methods, Immediate Past Chair of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS), a Past President of the SFPE, and a past Chair of the Inter-jurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee (IRCC). He is a licensed Professional Engineer in CT and MA, a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), a registered European Engineer (EUR ING), a Fellow of the SFPE, and a Fulbright Global Scholar.
Kazunori Harada is a professor of architecture & architectural engineering at Kyoto University, Japan. He has a career in fire research for over 35 years. He has authored 14 IAFSS symposium papers. His expertise covers the fire resistance of construction materials, smoke movement and control, burning of combustibles in open and compartment, performance-based code & design of buildings and so on. He serves as a vice president of AOAFST, Asia-Oceania Association of Fire Science and Technology. He also serves as the Convenor of ISO/TC92/SC4 WG9, calculation methods for fire safety engineering (FSE), which develops calculation standards concerning FSE.
Dr Xinyan Huang is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Fire Safety Engineering. He received his PhD from Imperial College London, MSc from UC San Diego, and BEng from Southeast University, and was a Postdoc at UC Berkeley. Dr Huang is a Combustion Scientist and a Fire Safety Engineer who has co-authored over 200 journal papers. He is an Associate Editor of Fire Technology and International Journal of Wildland Fire, an editorial member of J. Building Engineering, Fire Safety J. and Fire and Materials, a Chartered Building Services and Fire Engineer, a committee member for HK Fire Safety Code, and a Fire Expert for HK High Court. He receives the NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, Bernard Lewis Fellowship and Sugden Best Paper Award from Combustion Institute, “5 under 35” and Bono Award from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE).
Arnaud Trouvé is Professor and Chair in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park, USA. He joined the Faculty in 2001 with a Ph.D. (1989) and Engineering Degree (1985) from École Centrale of Paris, France, and with previous experience as a combustion research engineer. Professor Trouvé’s research interests include fire modeling and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); application of data assimilation to fire and combustion; and physical modeling of combustion- and fire-related phenomena, including compartment fires, wildland fires and explosions. Professor Trouvé is a Fellow of the Combustion Institute and the recipient of the 2017 FORUM Sjölin Award. He has served on the editorial boards of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion and Flame, and Fire Technology, and is currently on the editorial boards of Combustion Theory and Modelling and the Fire Safety Journal. Professor Trouvé is also a past Chair of the US Eastern States Section of the Combustion Institute (ESSCI) and a past Member of the Executive Board of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). He is a co-Chair of a recent initiative endorsed by IAFSS and called the “IAFSS Working Group on Measurement and Computation of Fire Phenomena” (the MaCFP Working Group) and the past Chair of a new network of leading higher-education institutions and research laboratories in fire safety engineering called the International Fire Safety Consortium (IFSC).
Dr Felix Wiesner is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and study the role of engineered timber in fire safety. I work in the Faculty of Forestry as part of the Wood Science department. My research focus has mostly been experimental, considering fire dynamics in timber compartments and the structural fire capacity of engineered timber products. In addition, I am interested in the performance of timber in exterior building or infrastructure setting. This closely interfaces with wildfire considerations for the wildland urban interface (WUI), especially when it comes to smouldering.
Prof. Yuji Nakamura is Full Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), appointed as Affiliate Full Professor in Center for Fire Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science (since 2014). He currently serves the Head of Energy Conversion Laboratory and appointed as Department Chair since 2024. Prof. Nakamura has made professional service in Fire Science Community served as Management Committee of IAFSS during 2021-2023, worked as Co-chair of LOC in the most recent IAFSS symposium at Tsukuba, acting Associate Editor of Fire Technology since 2014 and board member of Fire Safety Journal since 2017.
ROGAUME Thomas is an Professor at the University of Poitiers – Pprime Institute (UPR3346 CNRS), FRANCE.
Yu Wang is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He got joint Ph.D. from USTC and the City University of Hong Kong in 2016 and had working experience at the University of Edinburgh, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and National University of Singapore before returning to China in 2020. His primary research areas are high-rise building fire and large outdoor fire. Yu has published over 50 SCI journal papers, and is currently an Associate Editor in Fire Technology and Editorial Board Member in Fire Safety Journal. He initiated the first English fire course at USTC, Introduction of Fire Dynamics, reported by China News and People’s Daily Online (over 260,000 audiences). In recent years, he has received SFPE Global 5 Under 35 Award, Youth May Fourth Medal (Anhui Province), Young Faculty Career Award (USTCAF), and some Best Paper/Presentation/Poster/Image Awards in IAFSS or AOSFST.
Brian Lattimer, Ph.D. is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech where he performs experimental and computational research on fire safety and disaster resilience. He has nearly 30 years of experience in fire related research. His research areas include material behavior in fires, fire dynamics, suppression agents, heat transfer from fires to surfaces, structural response during fire, and firefighting technology.
Dr. Shuna Ni is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Ph.D. degree at Texas A&M University in 2018 and her Master’s degree at Tongji University in 2013. Dr. Ni’s research focuses on fire forensics, structural fire engineering, WUI fire resilience, fire safety of tall mass-timber buildings and fire-related multiple hazards. Her research has been funded by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Justice, Fire Protection Research Foundation, University Transportation Centers under the Department of Transportation, Grand Challenges Grants Program at the University of Maryland and industrial partners.
Dr Wojciech Węgrzyński is with ITB, that is the Polish Building Research Institute in Warsaw. He currently holds the position of the Deputy Head of Fire Research Department and the Professor of the Institute, and a Director at SFPE Europe. He is the Author of 40 peer-reviewed papers published in all of the primary FSE journals. His main area of interest is the fundamentals of compartment fire dynamics and standardized fire testing, and also: use of computational fluid dynamics in fire, wind and fire interaction and evaluation of the effects of the spread of smoke in buildings. His research is focused on the impact of the architectural context of the building on the smoke control performance, as well as finding solutions to make the smoke exhaust systems cheaper and more efficient. Member of the Sub-committee for Research of the IAFSS. 2018 NFPA Harry C. Bigglestone Award Recipient; 2019 Jack Watts Award Recipient; 2020 SFPE 5 Under 35 Award Recipient. Member of Editorial Board of ‘Fire Technology. Hosts a fire podcast at 
Jennifer Wen is currently Professor of Energy Resilience in the School of Mechanical Engineering Sciences, University of Surrey as Professor. Previously, Jennifer held positions at Computational Dynamics Limited (founding vendor of STAR-CCM), British Gas plc, South Bank University, Kingston University London, and University of Warwick. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Vice-Chair for Research for the International Association for Fire Safety Science. Jennifer is also a member and sub-task leader of the European Safety Panel on Hydrogen Safety (EHSP) established by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) of the European Commission. She is an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute.
Enrico Ronchi is an Associate Professor at Lund University, Sweden. His research and education activities are focused on evacuation and human behaviour in case of building fires and wildfires. His work has been published in over 150 publications (including >90 peer-reviewed journal papers). He is currently Associate Editor for the journals Fire Technology and Safety Science and member of the editorial board of the Fire Safety Journal.