Gimmy Tomaselli, a brilliant PhD student who worked at GRAPPA under the joint supervision of D. Baumann and me, has been awarded the 2025 Committee for Astroparticle physics in the Netherlands (CAN) Thesis Prize. This prestigious prize recognizes the best astroparticle physics thesis defended at Dutch universities each year.

Tomaselli completed his PhD thesis “Gravitational Atoms and Black Hole Binaries” and obtained his PhD at the UvA in October 2024. During his four-year doctoral project, he developed novel theoretical models for detecting ultralight dark matter. His work combined analytical and numerical calculations to predict the imprints of light particles produced by black holes through a process known as ‘superradiance’ on the gravitational waves emitted by merging black holes.

Following his PhD, Tomaselli has taken up a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, for which he received a Rubicon grant. At IAS he will continue exploring the rich interplay between fundamental theory and observational prospects for dark matter, collaborating with leading researchers in both particle physics and cosmology.

Congrats Gimmy!

Full press release here: https://iop.uva.nl/content/news/2025/06/giovanni-maria-tomaselli-wins-2025-can-thesis-prize.html