News

SCI Awards celebrate excellent work at our school in 2022

Published: 15.12.2022

The recipients were revealed at the school’s Christmas party, which this year took place on-site after two years of celebrating remotely.

The School of Science awards highlight great work by members of our community. As is tradition, the awards were given out at the school’s Christmas party. This year, the party took place on December 13, on campus for the first time after two consecutive years of online festivities.

The awardees, together with messages from colleagues who nominated them, are listed below.

Innovation of the Year Award:

Mikko Alava, Juha Koivisto, Luisa Jannuzzi and Antti Puisto: Foamwood

'Foamwood R2B promoted a novel solid biobased foam for plastics replacements, with the core idea originating from basic research at the Complex Systems and Materials group (Applied Physics). The material is recyclable and the process of making it is continuous. During the project it gave rise to plenty of student interest - including a 2021-2022 Product Development Course team - and media attention via eg. the Cooler Planet exhibition. The invention is now, since the summer of 2022, in the hands of the Woamy Ltd Startup, which is drawing considerable venture capital interest. Woamy plans to continue on the track of the Foamwood project and make its foams a novel packaging material solution'.

Also nominated: Niko Oinonen; Victor Souza, Juuso Korhonen, Heikki Sinisalo and Risto Ilmoniemi; Jukka Planman et. al., Eero Hyvönen, Jouni Tuominen, Petri Leskinen, Laura Sinikallio, Senka Drobac, Matti La Mela, Mikko Koho, Esko Ikkala, Minna Tamper, Rafael Leal, Heikki Rantala and Joonas Kesäniemi

Scientific Communication Award

Eero Hyvönen & the Semantic Computing Research group: The sampo portals

'The ‘sampos’, which have caught the attention of major Finnish media outlets, have opened up a new type of access to linked data for scientists in various fields. On top of that, they have created a novel pathway for citizens to learn about things such as their own family history. It can be said that the sampos have made information more democratic, while simultaneously broadening our understanding of the great things that can be achieved by combining different data. The work is highly cross-disciplinary, including application domains such as Digital Humanities, Health, Learning, Government, Commerce, Geography, and Biology. Eero Hyvönen's group consists of researchers both from the Aalto University, School of Science, Department of Computer Science and the University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science, and HELDIG (Helsinki Centre of Digital Humanities)'.

Also nominated: Pauliina Ilmonen; Tiina Aulanko-Jokirinne

Service Person of the Year Award:

Tiina Aulanko-Jokirinne

'Tiina is an amazing communicator who has the wonderful skill of translating difficult scientific findings into interesting news stories, social media entries and what not. She moves fluently between subjects and disciplines, stops to listen and desires to understand. She really sees the person behind the work and brings the essence and the people to the core. All this she does with a humble can-do attitude'.

Also nominated: Anton Alestalo; Kenrick Bingham; Enrico Glerean; Teija Halme; Mari Knuuttila; Susanna Marttala and Tiina Maltzeff; Mikko Mikkola; Marja Niemi; Noora Suominen de Rios; SCI LES team responsible for SISU operations

Teaching Award:

Jami Kinnunen

'Jami arranged an exciting Escape room as part of the course Introduction to University Physics, and extended the invite for any interested students or members of staff. "We had a lot of fun with our team as well as brushed up on physics subjects we had forgotten!"’

Also nominated: Ville Havu; Anton Kuzyk; Matias Palva

Community Award

Maryam Borghei: Puhutaan suomea

'Maryam has introduced a community activity for foreign employees "puhutaan suomea", supported by SCI. She has arranged semi-regular lunch breaks where people can gather freely from various schools and departments. The people bring their own lunches and discuss in Finnish over the lunch. To structure the conversation and help the people to go on, there's a Finnish teacher hired for these meetings. Wonderful effort for the non-finnish speaking community!'

Also nominated: Rebecca Heilmann and Imran Asghar; Tiina Maltzeff and Susanna Marttala; Elena Shaw; Marijn van Vliet; SCI LES team responsible for SISU operations