Inês Rosa, a researcher at the Composites Research Group (CORE) of the Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability (CERIS), a research unit affiliated with Instituto Superior Técnico, won the 2022 ESCM Best PhD Thesis Award delivered by the European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM).

The Técnico master’s and PhD student presented her thesis “Fire behaviour of concrete structures reinforced with GFRP bars’” during the 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM21), held in Nantes on 5 July. According to the abstract, the main objective was to assess ‘in further detail the fire behaviour of reinforced concrete structures containing glass fibre reinforced polymer bars’, which is increasingly used.

The thesis was supervised by João Firmo, a professor at Técnico, and co-supervised by João Ramôa Correia, a professor at Técnico (who gave a MasterTalk in June), and Mário Arruda, a researcher at CERIS. According to the ESCM’s criteria, the theses submitted “were evaluated based on originality and depth of contribution, rigour, methodological soundness, form and quality of presentation, and significance to the research community”.

“It is a great honour and joy to see my doctoral thesis being recognised internationally”, shares Inês Rosa. “This award, as well as representing an important personal milestone, reflects the invaluable support from the Técnico community during my training as a Civil Engineering master’s and doctoral student, and which continues to be fundamental in my career as a researcher at this institution”, she adds. According to Inês Rosa, the award is also a “recognition of the excellent research carried out at Técnico, and a testimony to the quality of teaching and research carried out at Portuguese universities”.