The 2020 Kaivalya Dixit Distinguished Dissertation Award Winners

The Kaivalya Dixit Distinguished Dissertation Award, named in memory of SPEC's long-time president Kaivalya Dixit, honors outstanding dissertations within the scope of the SPEC Research Group.

Based on the high quality of dissertations nominated for this award, the SPEC Research Group selection committee decided to also publicly recognize a runner-up award winner.

Award winner
Dr. Maher Alharby, Newcastle University

The winning dissertation — Models and Simulation of Blockchain Systems — was authored by Dr. Maher Alharby from Newcastle University, under the supervision of Professor Aad van Moorsel. The selection committee was especially impressed by the potential impact of the work, the rigor of the quantitative evaluations, the balance struck between design, development and evaluation, and the variety of publications associated with the dissertation.

Award Runner-up
Dr. Thomas Cooper, Newcastle University

The runner-up dissertation — Performance Modelling of Distributed Stream Processing Topologies — was authored by Dr. Thomas Cooper, also of Newcastle University, under the supervision of Dr. Paul Ezhilchelvan. Members of the committee were impressed by the industrial relevance of the application scenario, the sophistication of the modeling employed and the "exquisite, well-articulated" writing in the dissertation.