The Winners
The Selection Committee for the Peccei and Mikhalevich Awards has completed its review of the 2009 nominations. The winners of the two Peccei Awards are Zachary Brown of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, USA and Gregor Kiesewetter, Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Germany. The Mikhalevich Award goes to Christian Hilbe, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna, Austria.

Zach is currently in his third year of a five year Ph.D. program in environmental and natural resource economics at Duke University.

During his three month stay in IIASA's Health and Global Change Project, Zach completed a study entitled "Modeling the simultaneous impacts of insecticide and antimalarial resistance in malaria control." One reviewer stated that "the most brilliant aspect of this work is the idea of melting two very different sets of dynamics to explore their interaction .. I have never seen this done with resistance and malaria." Another reviewer pointed out that he "was particularly impressed with the attempt made to address economic issues – an altogether under-represented aspect of most malaria models."

A physics graduate from the University of Vienna, Gregor Kiesewetter is currently a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Bremen. His current research interests include the variability of the ozone layer, and chemistry-climate interaction. He received the Peccei Award for his work in the Atmospheric Pollution & Economic Development Program on "Assessing transport of particulate matter pollution from Europe to the Arctic."

One external reviewer noted, “this is the first time I have seen the EMEP model results for the Arctic analyzed in this way and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) analysis provided a good further test of the ideas suggested by Eckhardt .... given the importance of black carbon over the Arctic, the study adds a valuable new perspective to this issue." Another reviewer pointed out that "the study aids an understanding of the sources of particulate matter and black carbon to the Arctic .. this is of high policy relevance."

Winner of the Mikhalevich Award, Christian Hilbe graduated from the University of Vienna in Mathematics. He is currently a first-year Ph.D. student in the biomathematics group of the University of Vienna. Christian was recognized for his work on public-goods games under time pressure in the Evolution and Ecology Program. One reviewer commented that "this is a novel, ingenious approach to solve evolutionary games with time dependent payoff structure ...and despite its simplicity (which should be regarded as a big plus), it has important implications for decision making, especially in the context of global change and sustainable development." Another referee commented that "previous papers in this area called for an analytical approach to the problem and to the reviewers best knowledge, this is the first approach in this direction."

About the Awards
The Awards, which are awarded annually for outstanding work by participants of the IIASA's Young Scientists Summer Program, provide financial support for the winners to return to IIASA for an additional three-month period of research.

The Selection Committee
The Selection Committee was made up of IIASA Director Detlof von Winterfeldt, Summer Program Dean Joanne Bayer, and scientific representatives from IIASA programs.

The Selection Criteria
In making its decisions, the committee drew on the following sources of information:

• Written reports prepared by the candidates during their participation in the 2009 summer program. The reports were ranked on:
  • the quality of the research;
  • originality of the research;
  • effectiveness of the approach;
  • and the relevance and impact of the research.
• Memos from supervisors supporting and evaluating their candidates' nomination;
• Evaluations of the candidates' reports by external reviewers.

External Reviewers
Sixteen papers were submitted for consideration. The Selection Committee gratefully acknowledges the evaluations of the reviewers; their input was of great value in the selection process.

Responsible for this page: Barbara Hauser
Last updated: 24 Feb 2011