This year’s awarding ceremony of the “Marko Jarić” award attracted significant media attention. This prestigious award, known as “Serbian Nobel prize for Physics”, won prof. Dr. Ilija Zeljković, full professor at Boston College for “outstanding contributions to the study of highly correlated superconducting materials based on cuprates and crystal topological insulators, as well as to the study of superconductors with the Kagome crystal lattice.”
On Thursday, March 14, 2024, the very day of the award, news on the “Marko Jarić” award was broadcast in Dnevnik 2 of Radio-Television of Serbia. “I lead a group dealing with quantum materials. We are researching new materials with some exotic properties of electrons, in order to understand what electrons do in materials in the first place, and then maybe make some materials that could be used in everyday life,” Dr. Zeljković said for Dnevnik. Dr. Aleksandar Belić, President of the “Marko V. Jarić Foundation” Board of Directors spoke about the importance of the prize for Dnevnik. “This award tends to be a bridge towards our people in the diaspora. The new knowledge that they bring will lead to greater strength and greater cohesion of society, which we will certainly need in the coming period,” said Dr. Belić.
Dnevni list Politika wrote that Dr. Zeljković graduated from the Mathematical Grammar School in Belgrade in 2003, after which he completed his basic studies in physics and computer science at Washington University in St. Louis. He defended his doctoral dissertation at Harvard, and he established his own group at Boston College dealing with the synthesis of new materials and research using scanning tunneling microscopy.
The “Marko Jarić” award ceremony, which was held in the Ceremonial Hall of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, was covered by Tanjug, and the Institute of Physics Belgrade also provided a live broadcast.
EuroNews, Novosti, Novi magazin, Telegraf, Radio-Television Vojvodina, and Brainz wrote about the “Marko Jarić” award and this year’s laureate.
Photo by: Bojan Džodan/IPB