Prof. Clivia M. Sotomayor Torres Awarded Bloch Prize 2025 for Outstanding Contributions to Phononics

We are proud to share that Professor Clivia M. Sotomayor Torres, Principal Investigator of the ERC LEIT Project and Director-General of INL, has been awarded the 2025 Bloch Prize, one of the highest international recognitions in the field of phononics.

Awarded by the International Phononics Society during Phononics 2025 at Seoul National University, South Korea, the Bloch Prize celebrates exceptional and sustained contributions to phononic materials, wave propagation, and related phenomena.

Professor Sotomayor Torres’s pioneering work in phonon physics, optical spectroscopy, and nanoscale thermal transport, core pillars of the LEIT Project, has placed INL and the LEIT team at the forefront of international research in the field.

“I am honoured and humbled by such recognition. It is a meaningful acknowledgment of the collaborative work of my group and our European partners, including CNRS in Lille and VTT in Helsinki. This also positions INL as a reference point in the global phononics landscape.” — Prof. Clivia M. Sotomayor Torres

Named after Nobel Laureate Felix Bloch, the biennial prize not only celebrates scientific excellence but also includes the honour of delivering the Bloch Lecture and contributing a Bloch Paper to the conference proceedings.

This recognition affirms the scientific leadership of the ERC LEIT Project in advancing knowledge at the intersection of nanotechnology, materials science, and phononics. As the field evolves toward new applications, from energy-efficient technologies to next-generation materials, LEIT continues to explore novel directions in phonon engineering and nanoscale transport phenomena.

This article was originally published on the INL News website.