2025 Medal Winners | francais

The 2025 Eric C. Svensson Memorial Graduate Scholarship

is awarded to

Riku Mizuta

"I feel so honoured and so grateful" winner quote

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2025 Eric C. Svensson Memorial Graduate Scholarship is awarded to Riku Mizuta, University of British Columbia, in recognition of his pioneering investigations of mechanisms for dark matter creation in the earliest moments after the Big Bang, and for multifaceted contributions to the broader physics community, including EDI programs at TRIUMF, and development of the CAP Student Advisory Council web site. announcement

My thesis is on the model building and direct detection of dark matter, at keV-MeV scale in particular. At the CAP, I served to the Student Advisory Council for four years; my work includes creating the Council’s website, organizing the first inaugural problem competition, and conducting interviews with physics clubs and societies for need assessment. At the UBC, I deliver teaching workshops as part of the Teaching Assistant Professional Development team. I was also elected to the Equity and Inclusion committee in the department and organized events to raise awareness on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and workshops for students from underrepresented groups. At my graduate collegiate residence, Green College, I delivered three public talks on dark matter and general cosmology and also co-organized public talk series. At TRIUMF, I served to the local organizing committee for workshops and a Theory Seminar hosted by Theory Department. I am also a public tour guide and have delivered more than 50 of them; I have participated in other science communication initiatives such as Dark Matter Day Instagram Live and panel discussions for Future Leaders Program at Science World. I have also served to both site-wide EDI Committee and early career-led Early Career and Students for EDI; my work includes organizing Community Coffee events with presentations on EDI topics, facilitating discussions in EDI workshops, helping to create a Graduate Student and Postdoc Society code of conduct and report processing procedure, assembling lists of existing features and improvements for accessibility, and helping to coordinate a site-wide EDI survey in collaboration with Dr. Eden Hennessey from Wilfrid Laurier University. nominator citation

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