Anton Oed Prize 2022 awarded to Rob Veenhof

The Anton Oed Prize for the year 2022 has been awarded to Rob Veenhof, from CERN and Uludağ University, for his extensive work in MPGD simulations and development.

The award ceremony took place during the 7th International Conference on Micro-pattern Gaseous Detectors, which was held at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot (Israel) from 11 to16 December 2022.

In the late 1980s-early 1990s, Rob Vennhof created original Garfield program, which gave physicists a precise way to simulate electron drift, gas amplification, and signal formation.

As detector technology evolved from large drift chambers to ultra-fine Micro-Pattern Gas Detectors, Rob Veenhof's simulation framework evolved with them. His software allowed researchers to model microscopic electric fields and gas physics at the micrometer scale, which was vital for designing modern experiments.

For over three decades, Veenhof acted as a cornerstone of the gaseous detector community (particularly within the RD51 collaboration at CERN) and helped generations of researchers and students optimise their complex experimental setups.

The Anton Oed Prize is awarded biannually by the ILL to recognise active scientists who have made significant contributions to the development of micro-pattern gaseous detectors (MPGD). The prize was established in memory of Anton Oed, who invented the microstrip gas chamber (MSGC). Read more about the prize here.