The Norbert J. Kreidl Award for Young Scholars, recognizing research excellence in glass science, is open to all degree-seeking graduate students (MSc or PhD) or those who have graduated within a twelve-month period of 2025 Glass & Optical Materials Division Annual Meeting (GOMD 2025) in Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 4-9, 2025. A letter from a faculty advisor verifying compliance to this rule must accompany the application. The selection is based on an extended abstract of the nominee’s work (approximately 2,000 words plus figures) relevant to interests of the Division.
Nomination Process
All applicants are required to submit two abstracts:
- Submit one short abstract on the ACerS online abstract submission site for the GOMD annual meeting. Contact Karen McCurdy at kmccurdy@ceramics.org for access if the GOMD abstract deadline has passed. This short abstract will be used in organizing the technical program of the meeting and in publication of the meeting’s abstracts.
- Submit an extended abstract of the same title, (2,000 words maximum plus figures and tables) to the GOMD Division Chair Jessica Rimsza for evaluation by the Kreidl Award Committee. Note that the extended abstract (and faculty advisor letter) is required for consideration of the nominee by the Kreidl Award Committee. The winner of the Kreidl Award will be asked to present his/her lecture at a special Awards Session at the 2025 GOMD meeting. The presentation may be co-authored by a faculty advisor, but the technical work must be conducted by the student. The winning presentation will be given by the student only.
The winner receives a $500 honorarium, a certificate, complimentary meeting registration, and a commemorative glass piece.
Attendance at the 2025 GOMD meeting to present the Kreidl lecture is a requirement, so only those who can attend the meeting should apply.
For more details on all GOMD awards you may qualify for, see the attached GOMD Awards Table.
Contact
Nominations should be sent electronically to:
Jessica Rimsza
2024–2025 Chair, Glass & Optical Materials Division
and ACerS Staff Member Vicki Evans
Award Winners
Jayani Kalahe
Jayani Kalahe is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, USA. She received a B.Sc. (Hons) in Physics from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of North Texas. Her doctoral work was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Jincheng Du and focused on “The Effects of Composition and Temperature on Interfacial Reactions and Corrosion of Aluminosilicate Glasses from Reactive Molecular Dynamics Simulations”, providing new insights into complex mechanisms of glass-water interactions.
She has authored or co-authored more than ten peer-reviewed publications and presented her work at several international conferences in glass science. In 2024, Jayani completed a research internship at AGC Inc. in Yokohama, Japan, where she conducted a comparative study on glass modeling with universal machine learning potentials, utilizing M3GNET, MACE, and CHGNET.
Jayani was awarded first prize in the student poster competition at the 2023 Glass & Optical Materials Division (GOMD) Annual Meeting for her project on interfacial reactions in sodium aluminosilicate glasses. She also received the Editor’s Choice recognition from the Journal of the American Ceramic Society in 2024 for her work on sodium iron phosphate nuclear waste glasses. She has been an active member of ACerS since 2020.
She is currently working on the crystal morphology of monazite and the interfacial structures of monazite crystals with iron phosphate nuclear waste glasses, employing molecular dynamics simulations. Her expertise spans glass and materials modeling, data analysis, and machine learning applications in glass science.