01/05/2026
The EMA 2026 Young Scientist Award goes to Talieh Ghiasi
The EMA 2026 Dominique Givord award goes to Burkard Hillebrands
The European Magnetism Association (EMA) presents the Dominique Givord Award to established leaders for their scientific excellence and enduring contributions to advancing magnetism across Europe. Complementing this, the Young Scientist Award celebrates exceptional early-career researchers who are already making groundbreaking, innovative impacts in the field.
We are delighted to announce that the selection process for the 2026 Dominique Givord Award and 2026 Young Scientist Award has reached its conclusion. A committee of EMA General Council members carefully reviewed the various excellent nominations.
The 2026 Dominique Givord Award
Prof. Dr. Burkard Hillebrands receives the 2026 Dominique Givord Award for his pioneering contributions to the field of spin dynamics, particularly in magnonics, alongside his dedicated leadership and influential and deeply supportive presence within the magnetism community.
Through his significant scientific achievements, such as advancing Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy and realizing magnon-based logic devices, he has firmly established magnonics as a key area of contemporary magnetism. His leadership has greatly strengthened the magnetism community across Europe.
Burkard Hillebrands began his academic career in physics at the University of Cologne, completing his PhD in 1986 before earning his habilitation at RWTH Aachen in 1993. After early roles at the University of Arizona and the University of Karlsruhe, he spent nearly three decades (1995–2024) as a Full Professor at the TU and RPTU Kaiserslautern, where he now serves as a Senior Professor. A highly respected leader in the scientific community, he has held several pivotal administrative roles, including Scientific Director of IFW Dresden and Vice President for Research at TU Kaiserslautern. He is a founding member of EMA and served as President of EMA from 2019 to 2022.
More information:orcid and webpage
The 2026 Young Scientist Award
Dr. Talieh Ghiasi receives the 2026 Young Scientist Award in recognition of her pioneering experiments in proximity-induced magnetism and topological quantum spin transport in graphene, advancing two-dimensional platforms for integrating spin-based computation and magnetic memory.
She has made seminal contributions to the field of 2D spintronics. Through significant scientific achievements, including the demonstration of charge-to-spin conversion and evidence for topological spin transport in magnetic graphene without an external magnetic field, she has firmly established magnetic graphene as a key platform for future quantum spintronic circuits. She is also a dedicated science communicator and active community builder. Her leadership in organizing events such as the SPICE Young Research Leaders workshop has strengthened the young magnetism community throughout Europe.
Talieh Ghiasi began her academic journey studying Nanoscience at the University of Groningen, where she completed her PhD with the highest distinction in 2021. After conducting postdoctoral research at Delft University of Technology and Harvard University, she established her own independent research group at the Quantum Nanoscience Department at TU Delft in 2025. Currently serving as an assistant professor, she is a highly respected young leader in the scientific community.
More information: orcid and webpage
We are honored to host Talieh Ghiasi and Burkard Hillebrands at the JEMS 2027 conference in Prague. During the event, they will be formally presented with their awards and will share their research in a plenary session.