Elena Vladimirovna Boldyreva, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, leading researcher at the G.K. Boreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS, and Head of the NSU Solid State Chemistry Section at the Department of Natural Sciences, will head the William Bragg International Prize Organizing Committee. The prize will be awarded for the first time in 2020 at the International Congress of Crystallographers in Prague. The award was designed to recognize distinguished young scientists. The Bragg name for the award was not an accident; Bragg became a Nobel laureate at the age of 25 and remains the youngest laureate in the history of Nobel prizes.
Boldyreva received the invitation to lead the international jury from the Executive Committee of the International Union of Crystallographers. She explained the background to this honor,
Earlier, I served as a jury member for international awards for adults, such as the Ewald Prize (the main prize of the International Union of Crystallographers) and the Perutz Prize (the main prize of the European Crystallographer association). So, I have experience on juries. However, this will be the first time I will serve as the Jury Chairman for an international award at this level. This is a great honor and a great responsibility. It is also very nice that a Russian scientist will be leading the jury.
The jury has been working since last year discussing and agreeing on the principles and criteria for selection, nomination forms, debugging the discussion procedure and voting, taking into account the fact that the jury members are scattered across several continents. Now that this stage is completed, the nomination rules and selection criteria have been formulated and announced. Nominations must be submitted by the end of the summer 2019. After this, several selection rounds will begin. Boldyreva noted,
Such awards are undoubtedly very important for scientists because they are recognition from your colleagues, professionals. The Bragg Prize is also designed to support young talented scientists just starting on their independent path.
