2019 Phoenix Award winner confirmed

Professor Alicia Durán is the 49th recipient of the Phoenix Award and ‘Glass Person of the Year 2019’. Alicia Durán is Research Professor at CSIC, the Spanish Research Council. She has developed her entire professional career at the Institute of Ceramics and Glass (CSIC), leading the GlaSS research group at the Department of Glass. She has also been Secretary of the Glass Section of the Spanish Ceramic and Glass Society for more than 25 years.

Professor Durán graduated in physics at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, in 1974 and obtained a PhD in physics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1984. In 1988, she was awarded the ICG’s Gottardi Prize for young glass researchers.

The Phoenix Award Committee selected Professor Durán to receive this year’s prestigious Phoenix Award in recognition of her extensive work in the furtherance of glass, glass-ceramics and sol-gel materials research, from basic research to applications in the industrial glass sector and other final users of glassy materials.

Topics related to energy and environment research are the aim of most projects developed by Professor Durán in the GlaSS group, recognised as the Excellence group within CSIC. Different materials and components for fuel cells and Li-batteries, transparent nano glass-ceramics for photonic applications or glass and glass-ceramic sealing for SOFC, come together with protective and environmentally-friendly anti-corrosive coatings, meso-structure films with photocatalytic activity and multi-functional sol-gel coatings.

Continuous collaboration has been maintained with the Spanish and international glass industry on relevant topics; from enhancing energy saving in furnaces, to environmental issues and emission control or recycling systems, to the certification of food safety of glass containers.

International co-operation and teaching have always been among her essential objectives, receiving the Raíces (Roots) Award to International Co-operation in Argentina in 2014.

Since September 2018, Professor Durán has been President of the International Commission on Glass, an international society of national scientific and technical organisations, with particular interests in glass science and technology. The aim of the ICG is to promote and stimulate understanding and co-operation between glass experts in the fields of science and technology, as well as art, history and education. A particular goal of her presidency is centered on the promotion of women throughout the whole field of glass.

Professor Durán has made an outstanding contribution to the world of glass science and technology throughout her career and is recognised as a worthy winner of the 2019 Glass Person of the Year.

“Alicia Durán has dedicated her life to glass research, education and transmission of knowledge” commented Jean-Luc Logel, Chairperson of the Phoenix Award Committee for 2019. “Her extensive knowledge is matched only by her great simplicity and exceptional generosity. As a scientist and as a human being, Alicia embodies the PAC’s values perfectly.”

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