Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 SKACH Awards, nominated by their peers for the outstanding contributions of the Swiss community to the international Square Kilometre Array effort.
The 2025 SKACH Awards were presented during this year’s SKA Days hosted by ZHAW in Winterthur. They recognize excellence in research, development, and collaboration aligned with SKA science and technology.
Candidates were nominated by their peers and winners were then selected by the SKACH Board. The awards aim to showcase impactful work, including the use of SKA simulations or precursor data, advances in computing, engineering, or astrophysics, and other contributions to the global SKA community.
The winners are:
SKACH Exceptional PhD Award – Mariia Drozdova, University of Geneva
Mariia won the award for outstanding contributions to advancing data-driven methodologies for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), including a first-author publication “Radio-astronomical image reconstruction with a conditional denoising diffusion model” on generative models for source localization and flux estimation.
Unique Research Topic Award – Erica Lastufka, University of Geneva
Erika took this prize for the application of self-supervised learning and vision foundation models to optical and radio astronomy, demonstrating their strengths for galaxy detection and classification while identifying key limitations and adaptation strategies. This innovative work bridges advanced machine learning techniques with the unique challenges of SKA-scale astronomical data.
Outstanding Inter-Institutional Project Award – Rohini Joshi, FHNW
Rohini was awarded for the management of the SKA Regional Centre team which bridges institutional boundaries, bringing together members from EPFL, CSCS, UniGE, ETHZ, and HES-SO. Through a balanced combination of technical expertise, perseverance, and empathy, they have fostered an excellent and cohesive development team, leading the successful delivery of SRC v0.1 and driving continued SRC development.
Outstanding Inter-Institutional Project Award – The SEarCH Team: Michele Bianco, ETHZ; Davide Piras, University of Geneva; Nicolas Cerardi, EPFL; Emmanuel de Salis, HES-SO; Massimo de Santis, HES-SO; Philipp Denzel, ZHAW; Merve Selcuk-Simsek, FHNW; Hatem Ghorbel, HES-SO
The SEarCH team took the prize for demonstrating outstanding collaboration across multiple Swiss institutions and internationally, achieving remarkable results in the SDC3b challenge and showcasing Switzerland’s strengths on the global SKA stage. Their efforts earned them an impressive third-place overall finish.
Computing Excellence Award – The Swiss SRC V0.1 Team: Pablo Llopis, EPFL; Carolina Lindqvist, EPFL, Lukas Gehrig, FHNW; Pascal Herzog, FHNW; Elia Oggian, CSCS; Dino Conciatore, CSCS
The Swiss SRC V0.1 team won for its success in delivering the Swiss SRCNet v0.1, reflecting members’ deep knowledge and experience in making the SRCNet software stack run seamlessly on HPC infrastructure. Their dedication, patience, and attention to detail ensured every challenge was met with persistence and precision.
Service in Scientific Outreach Award – Tanya Petersen, EPFL
Tanya was awarded for her exceptional efforts to communicate SKA-related science and technology to the public, educators, and broader stakeholder communities, demonstrating a strong commitment to engagement, accessibility, and societal relevance.
