Awards

The Sheldon Tieszen Award recognizes excellence in an IAFSS symposium paper in fire safety science by a student making a significant contribution to that paper and a monetary award to assist the recipient with symposium-related expenses toward their attendance at the IAFSS Symposium. IAFSS organizes the selection and distribution of these awards.

Award eligibility and its privileges

Each Sheldon Tieszen Student Award consists of a plaque and a monetary award to assist the recipient with symposium-related expenses toward their attendance at the IAFSS Symposium.

To be eligible, a student needs to be enrolled in an academic course of study at the time the paper is submitted to the Symposium Program Committee. Recipients must present their papers at the Symposium.

A student will normally be the lead author on the paper accepted for presentation at the IAFSS Symposium. If a student is not named as the lead author, a letter from the senior author is required to itemize the student’s contribution to the paper.

Nomination Process

An Email to corresponding authors of accepted papers will invite nominations. The corresponding author needs to indicate at the time of paper acceptance that the paper is to be considered for the FORUM Student Travel Award, and that the student nominee is the lead author.

Selection Considerations

The winners will be selected by the IAFSS Awards Committee in consultation with the FORUM from papers accepted for presentation at the annual IAFSS Symposium. The list of nominees will be provided to the Awards Committee by the Symposium Program Committee. The Award Committee may decide at its discretion not to select eight winners, increasing the amount of the awards. The Awards Committee will judge the papers on their quality; i.e., on the originality, clarity, and potential impact on practical or theoretical applications of fire safety science. Strong consideration will be given to candidates from countries which usually are not widely represented in the Symposium. Consideration may also be given to students who would not be able to attend the Symposium without additional support. The winners of the Sheldon Tieszen Student Awards sponsored by the FORUM will be announced approximately five to six weeks after authors receive notification of acceptance of their papers for presentation at the Symposium. The recipients will be honored at a ceremony held during the IAFSS Symposium, with the Awards formally presented at that time.

2023 (14th IAFSS)

• David Meyer, Charles Darwin University, Australia. Rheological Properties of Solutions of Fluorine-free Foams.
• Antoine Bouffard, Aix-Marseille Université, France. On the Mechanisms Affecting Soot Production in Oxygen-depleted Buoyant Flames.
• Luke de Schot, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Exploring Single-line Walking in Immersive Virtual Reality.
• Arthur Rohaert, Lund University, Sweden. The Analysis of Traffic Data of Wildfire Evacuation: The Case Study of the 2020 Glass Fire.
• Priya Garg, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Limiting Conditions of Smoldering-to-Flaming Transition of Cellulose Powder.
• Linhao Fan, Zhengzhou University, China. An Explainable Machine Learning Based Flashover Prediction Model Using Dimension-Wise Class Activation Map.
• Nikolaos Kalogeropoulos, Imperial College, London, UK. Design of Stochastic Trigger Boundaries for Rural Communities Evacuating from a Wildfire.
• Tianwei Chu, The Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., Hong Kong. Introducing an Active Opening Strategy to Mitigate Large Open-plan Compartment Fire Development.

2020-2021 (13th IAFSS)

• Carmen Gorska, The University of Queensland, Australia. Fire Dynamics in Mass Timber Compartments.
• Juan Cuevas, The University of Queensland, Australia. Flame Extinction and Burning Behaviour of Timber Under Varied Oxygen Concentrations.
• Andrea Lucherini, The University of Queensland, Australia. Influence of Heating Conditions and Initial Thickness on the Effectiveness of Thin Intumescent Coatings.
• Elias Bearinger, Virginia Tech, USA. Localized Heat Transfer from Firebrands to Surfaces.
• Vinny Gupta, The University of Queensland, Australia. Ventilation Effects on the Thermal Characteristics of Fire Spread Modes in Open-plan Compartment Fires.
• Natalia Flores Quiroz, University of Stellenbosch, S. Africa. Developing a Framework for Fire Investigations in Informal Settlements.
• Felix Wiesner, University of Edinburgh, UK. Influence of Ply Configuration and Adhesive Type on Cross-Laminated Timber in Flexure at Elevated Temperature.
• Jian Chen, NIST/University of Science and Technology of China, P.R. China. Why are Cooktop Fires so Hazardous.
• Mohamed Beshir, University of Edinburgh, UK. Semi-empirical Model for Estimating the Heat Release Rate Required for Flashover in Compartments with Thermally-thin Boundaries and Ultra-fast Fires.
• Nan Zhu, University of Science and Technology of China, P.R. China. Transitional Flame-spread and Fuel-regression Behaviors Under the Change of Concurrent Wind.
• Karina Meerpoel-Pietri, Università di Corsica, France. Determination of the Critical Conditions Leading to the Ignition of Decking Slabs by Firebrands.
• Lauren B. Gagnon, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Effect of Reduced Ambient Pressures and Opposed Airflows on the Flame Spread and Dripping of LDPE Insulated Copper Wires.
• Qi Li, Wuhan University (China)/NIST, P.R. China. Symmetric Modeling of the Thermal Actions in a Structural Fire Experiment on a Long-span Composite Floor Beam in a Compartment.
• Martina Manes, University of Edinburgh, UK. Assessing Fire Frequency and Structural Fire Behaviour of England Statistics According to BS PD 7974-7.
• Xingyu Ren, University of Maryland, USA. Temperature Measurement of a Turbulent Buoyant Ethylene Diffusion Flame Using a Dual-Thermocouple Technique.

2017 (12th IAFSS)

• Rahul Wadhwani, Victoria Un., Australia. Verification of Lagrangian Particle Model for Short-range Firebrand Transport.
• Mohamad Lutfi Ramadhan, Un. of Indonesia, Indonesia. Experimental Study of the Effect of Water Spray on the Spread of Smoldering in Indonesian Peat Fires.
• Obinna Akaa, Canterbury Un., New Zealand. Optimising Design Decision-making for Steel Structures in Fire Using a Hybrid Analysis Technique.
• Cong Zhang, Un. of Maryland, USA. Evaluation of a Data-driven Wildland Fire Spread Forecast Model with Spatially-distributed Parameter Estimation in Simulations of the FireFlux I Field-scale Experiment.
• Joshua Swann, Un. of Maryland, USA. Controlled Atmosphere Pyrolysis Apparatus II (CAPA II): A New Tool for Analysis of Pyrolysis of Charring and Intumescent Polymers.
• James White, FM Global, USA. Water Mist Suppression of a Turbulent Line Fire.
• Maria Thomsen, UC Berkeley, USA. Flame Spread Limits (LOC) of Fire Resistant Fabrics.
• Rémi Stroh, Supelec, France. Assessing Fire Safety Using Complex Numerical Models with a Bayesian Multi-fidelity Approach.
• Franz Richter, Imperial College, UK. Pyrolysis Kinetics and Inverse Modelling of Cellulose at the Microscale

2014 (11th IAFSS)

• Franz Evegren, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden. Fire Testing of External Combustible Ship Surfaces.
• Frida Vermina Lundström, DBI - Danish Ins. of Fire and Security Technology, Denmark. The Effect of Raised Walkway Design on Evacuation Behaviour in Rail Tunnels.
• Patrick Summers, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State Un., USA. Residual Constitutive Behavior of Aluminum Alloys after Fire Exposure.
• Mélanie C. Rochoux, CERFACS, France. Towards Predictive Simulation of Wildfire Spread at Regional Scale Using Ensemble-Based Data Assimilation to Correct the Fire Front Position.
• Nicholas L. Brogaar and Martin X. Sørensen, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark. A New Experimental Rig for Oil Burning on Water – Results for Crude and Pure Oils.

2011 (10th IAFSS)

• Ying Zhen Li, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Sweden. The Fire Growth Rate in a Ventilated Tunnel Fire.
• Tomoaki Nishino, Kyoto University, Japan. Modeling Recognition Degree of Refuges by Kyoto City Residents in Post-earthquake Fire Event.
• Sindra Summoogum, The University of Newcastle, Australia. Formation of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxins and Polychlorinated Dibenzofurans and Their Precursors in Fires of Pyrethroid Pesticide Alpha-Cypermethrin.
• Zhibin Chen, Kingston University, UK. Large Eddy Simulation of Fire Dynamics with the Improved Eddy Dissipation Concept

2008 (9th IAFSS)

• Sung-Han Koo, University of Edinburgh, UK. Sensor-Linked Fire Simulation Using A Monte-Carlo Approach.
• Sebastian Ukleja, University of Ulster, UK. Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Production Downstream of a Compartment for Underventilated Fires.