The Kyushu University Itoh project prize is awarded each year in association with the EPS Conference on Plasma Physics. The prize aims to recognize doctoral students who have performed excellent research on plasma turbulence, transport, confinement, or any related topic. The winner is offered the opportunity to visit Kyushu University, Japan, for one week, including paid flights and living expenses. The competition is judged by a panel of experts chaired, in 2023, by Professor Akihide Fujisawa of Kyushu University.

Winners of the Kyushu University Itoh Project Prize

• 2024:  Olivier Panico, Institut Polytechnique de Paris (France) – Indirect evidence of avalanche-like transport in TCV plasmas backed by 1D nonlinear simulations. Two other posters were highly recommended: Synne Brynjulfsen (Arctic University of Norway, Norway) for “Numerical simulations of turbulence and blob structures in the scrape-off layer of magnetized plasmas”; and Miriam La Matina (Consorzio RFX, Italy) for “Experimental analysis of ELM precursors with the Thermal Helium Beam diagnostic at TCV”.
• 2023: three highly recommended presentations were awarded, since they were too competitive to select a winner.
  The three selected presentations were: Mario Raeth for “Excitation of high frequency waves in 6D kinetic Vlasov ITG simulation”, Jean Cazobonne for “Experimental and numerical evidence of electron turbulent transport enhancement by electron-cyclotron waves in tokamaks” and Oliver Panico for “Transport and zonal flows dynamics in flux-driven interchange and drift waves turbulence”.
• 2022: Ralf Mackenbach, Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) – Available energy and its relation to turbulent transport
  Two other students were highly recommended: Zongyu Yang (Southwestern Institute of Physics, China) for “An interpretable, transferable, and real-time disruption predictor in HL-2A based on deep learning” and Paul Mulholland (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands) for “KBM and finite beta ITG turbulence in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator”.
• 2021: Samuele Mazzi, Aix-Marseille Univ. & CEA/IRFM (France) – Suppression of ion-scale turbulent transport by MeV-range fast ions at JET
  Diego Jose Cruz Zabala (U. Seville – Spain – Characterization of edge poloidal impurity asymmetries at ASDEX Upgrade), Nicola Offeddu (EPFL – Switzerland – Direct measurements of parallel blob extension) and Prapti Bajaj (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- and Raumfahrt – Germany – Wave turbulence in fluid complex plasmas) were highly recommended.
• 2019: Til Ullman, Stuttgart University (Germany) – Shrinking of resonant manifold under flow shear at the stellarator TJ-K
  Another student was highly recommended: Aylwin Iantchenko, EPFL (Switzerland) “Modeling of Turbulent fluctuations measured in the TCV tokamak with gyrokinetic simulations and a synthetic phase contrast imaging diagnostic”.
• 2018: Alexander Creely (MIT, USA) – Cross-machine validation of TGLF and GENE on Alcator C-Mod and ASDEX Upgrade
  Two other students were highly recommended: Ondrej Grover (CAS IoP and CTU, Czech Republic) for “Search for zonal structures on the radial electric field and Reynolds stress profiles on COMPASS”  and Luis Gil (IST, Portugal) for “Edge instabilities across the L-H transition and in H-mode of ASDEX Upgrade”.
• 2017: Matteo Fontana (EPFL, Switzerland) – Turbulence measurements with the correlation electron cyclotron emission (CECE) diagnostic in TCV
  Two other students were highly commended: Nicola Bonanomi (Università di Milano-Bicocca & JET) for “Role of small-scale tubulence and multi-scale interactions in electron heat transport in JET” and Alsu Sladkomedova (Ioffe Institute) for “Impurity transport studies on the Globus-M tokamak”.
• 2016: Anna Medvedeva (IPP, CEA/IRFM, IJL & TU Munich) – Density profile and turbulence evolution during L-H transitions studied with the ultra-fast swept reflectometer on ASDEX Upgrade
  Two other students were highly commended: S. Thrysøe (DTU) for “Gas puff fuelling simulation with a combined neutral/HESEL model” and A. Lebschy (IPP, TU Munich) for “Measurement of the ExB velocity across the LOC-SOC transition”.
• 2015: Bernhard Schmid (U. Stuttgart, Germany) – Investigation of the energy transfer to zonal flows at the stellarator TJ-K
  Two other students were highly commended: C. Norscini (CEA/IRFM, France) for “Pedestal formation and turbulence self-organization at the separatrix between open and closed field lines” and M. Cavedon (IPP, Germany) for ” Study of the edge radial electric field during the L-H transition at ASDEX Upgrade”.
• 2014: Zhouji Huang (EPFL, Switzerland) – Investigation of plasma turbulence and geodesic acoustic modes using tangential phase-contrast imaging in the TCV tokamak
• 2013: Farah Hariri (CEA/IRFM, France) – A flux-coordinate independent field-aligned approach to plasma turbulence simulationsâ—Š
• 2012: Ilya Shesterikov (Ecole Royale Militaire, Belgium) – The experimental investigation on the role of E x B flow shear in tilting and breaking of turbulent eddiesâ—Š
• 2011: Natalia Kosolapova (Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute & Université Henri Poincaré Nancy, France) – Numerical modelling of turbulence wave number spectra reconstruction using radial correlation reflectometry in Tore Supra and FT-2 tokamaksâ—Š
• 2010: Gregor Birkenmeier (Universität Stuttgart, Germany) – Experimental investigation of effects of the magnetic field geometry on turbulent transport
• 2009: Tim Happel (CIEMAT, Spain) – Perpendicular plasma velocity and radial electric field profiles measured by Doppler reflectometry in the stellarator TJ-II
• 2008: Stella Oldenbürger (Nancy University, France) – Investigation of cross-field transport in a linear magnetized plasma
• 2007: Peter Manz (Universität Stuttgart, Germany) – Experimental estimation of nonlinear energy transfer in two-dimensional plasma turbulence
• 2006: Paolo Angelino (EPFL, Switzerland) – Plasma elongation and magnetic shear effects in nonlinear simulations of ITG-zonal flow turbulence
• 2005: Oliver Schmitz (IPP Jülich, Germany) – Impact of the dynamic ergodic divertor on the structure of the plasma edge at TEXTOR