ICTP Alumni Success

ICTP is proud to report that two of its alumni have recently received recognition for outstanding research.

Melessew Nigussie has received the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) prestigious 2017 Africa Award for Research Excellence in Space Science. AGU is the world’s largest organization of Earth and space scientists. The award is given annually to an early career scientist from the African continent in recognition of “completing significant work that shows the focus and promise of making outstanding contributions to research in space science,”  according to the AGU website. Nigussie is a researcher at Bahir Dar University’s Washera Geospace and Radar Science Laboratory in Ethiopia.  He participated in ICTP’s Sandwich Training Educational Program in 2010 under the co-supervision of Sandro M. Radicella, head of ICTP’s Telecommunications/ICT for Development Laboratory (T/ICT4D). 

A paper written by ICTP Senior Associate Humberto Cabrera in collaboration with Nova Gorica University was selected by the international journals Laser Physics and Laser Physics Letters as one of the year’s best papers for 2016. The paper, titled “Optimized frequency dependent photothermal beam deflection spectroscopy” (doi:10.1088/1612-2011/13/12/125701), appeared in a special edition of Laser Physics Letters that highlights articles believed by the editors to have potentially significant impact on future laser science research directions. Cabrera is affiliated with the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas). At ICTP, Cabrera has been working at the Center's Multidisciplinary Laboratory under the guidance of ICTP scientist Joseph Niemela, with partial funding from SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.