On September 28th a festive ceremony took place at the Shell Epicentre in Rijswijk. Ten Theoretical Physics Masters Students received a stipend worth € 2,000 from the hands of Dirk Smit, Vice President Exploration R&D at Shell and a physicist himself. The names of the winners are:

Sjoerd de Haan (RUG)
Wilco den Dunnen (VUA)
Marcin Dukalski (UU)
Shanna Haaker (UvA)
Irene Niessen (RU Nijmegen)
Jorrit Rijnbeek (UL)
Olaf Smits (UvA)
Stijn van Tongeren (UU)
Jorn Venderbos (UL)
Chris Wever (UU)

With these yearly awards, Shell hopes to draw attention to the career possibilities of young physicists in international companies such as Shell.

The selection of the best Masters students was coördinated by the DRSTP. At the ceremony prof. dr. Bernard de Wit, scientific director of the DRSTP, gave an explanation of the selection procedure. Prof. Kareljan Schoutens, chairman of the governing board of the DRSTP, gave a talk on the theoretical foundation of quantumcomputer technology, and Dirk Smit gave a talk on the R&D challenges that Shell faces in the next decades.