Page 39 - CSET HIGHLIGHTS.cdr

Student Excellence

Upcoming physicist earnsYoung Scientist Award in Italy

Masedi Masekane, a doctoral student from Unisa's department of
Physics and University of Zagreb, attended the ICTP-IAEA Advanced
Workshop on Future Trends in Multidisciplinary Ion Beam Analysis from
10 - 14 October 2022 in Trieste, Italy. This was an international
workshop that was jointly organised by the International Centre of
Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) at the Abdus Salam ICTP. Upon the conclusion of the workshop,
he was awared the Young Scientist Award, which was accompanied by
a prize money to value of 200 Euros, for promising young researcher
in the eld of Ion Beam Analysis (IBA).

The workshop focused on (amongst others) the state of Ion Beam
Analysis, new data analysis tools, applications of IBA (including IBA on the
NASA curiosity rover on Mars), using articial intelligence and machine
learning for solutions in IBA, and how to foster innovation in the eld. This
hosted a group of world class scientists from around the globe
instrumental to not only Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) but also other scientic
disciplines. Ion Beam Analysis is a cluster of nuclear analytical techniques
that use ion-atom interactions to study the structures of materials as well
as the fundamental physics through which ions and atoms interact.

Masedi was part of the 25 participants that were selected to take part in
the workshop from over 100 applications received. The selected
partcipants comprised of early stage researchers and PhD students from
around the globe who are all working in the eld of IBA.

During the workshop, partcipants were asked to give 2 minute ash oral
presentations or poster presentations on their research work within the
eld of IBA. The presentations were evaluated based on relevance of the
research work presented, presentation and delivery skills, and the overall
impact of the work in the development of IBA. Masedi's presentation was
based on the synergistic use of multiple IBA techniques referred to as Total
Ion Beam Analysis whrein, information coming from a single analytical
region would be consolidated. This included both the measurement and
prediction of cross sections using theoretical models and experimental
data. Simply put, known cross sections are used to determine unknown
cross sections in order to enable the use of different techniques all at the
same time.

“The personal impact this award has, is the affirmation of the high quality
and standard of the research work that we do, and a good indication that I
am on the right track in fostering a good international footprint in this very
specialized and scarce eld” said Masedi. He continues:
“Achieving this while undertaking a joint doctoral degree between Unisa

CSET 2022 HIGHLIGHTS PAGE 38