Professor Alicia Durán has been named as the 49th recipient of the Phoenix Award and ‘Glass Person of the Year 2019’.

Prof Durán is Research Professor at CSIC, the Spanish Research Council. She has developed her entire professional career at the Institute of Ceramics and Glass (CSIC), leading the GlaSS research group at the Department of Glass.

She has also been Secretary of the Glass Section of the Spanish Ceramic and Glass Society for more than 25 years.

Professor Duran graduated in Physics at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, in 1974 and obtained a PhD in Physics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1984.

In 1988 she was awarded with the Gottardi Prize of ICG for young glass researchers.

The Phoenix Award Committee said it selected Professor Duran to receive this year’s award in recognition of her extensive work in the furtherance of glass, glass-ceramics and sol-gel materials research, from basic research to applications in the industrial glass sector and other final users of glassy materials.

Topics related to energy and environment research are the aim of most projects developed by Professor Duran in the group GlaSS, recognised as Excellence group of CSIC.

She has maintained a continuous collaboration with Spanish and international glass industry, in topics such as enhancing energy saving in furnaces, environmental issues and emission control or recycling systems, and certification of food safety of glass containers.

From September 2018 she has been President of the International Commission on Glass, an international society of national scientific and technical organisations, with particular interests in glass science and technology.

A particular goal of her Presidency is centered on the promotion of women throughout the field of glass.

“Alicia Durán has dedicated her life to glass research, education and transmission of knowledge”, said Jean-Luc Logel, Chairperson of the Phoenix Award Committee for 2019.

“Her extensive knowledge is matched only by her great simplicity and exceptional generosity. As a scientist and as a human being, Alicia embodies the PAC’s values perfectly.”