In 2020, laureate Sana Somers won the first Dennie Lockefeer thesis prize with her master's thesis, "Floating storage of oil and oil-related products in the ARA region".
In 2021, the Dennie Lockefeer thesis prize was awarded for the second time. Dieter Havermans impressed the committee with his thesis on the potential of electric batteries in inland shipping. The physical award ceremony of the 2020 and 2021 thesis prizes took place on the 9th of July 2021 at Van Moer Logistics. In this way, the jury wants to recognise the contents of the master's theses and the enthusiasm of Sana and Dieter for the sector.
In 2022, the steering committee awarded three prizes according to the partner packages. The golden prize went to Cato Van Straeten. Cato set up a legal framework for a vessel train in Northwestern Europe, focusing on contractual liability and insurance. The silver prize went to Lauren Cooreman, who studied the potential of waterways as an alternative to the truck to supply raw materials for concrete processing companies. Robbe De Wit won the bronze prize with his master's thesis on alternative fuels in inland shipping. The award ceremony took place on the 26th of April 2022 at golden partner DP World Antwerp.
In 2023, the Dennie Lockefeer Thesis Awards were rewarded for the fourth time! The award ceremony was held on the Blauwe Reiger of golden partner De Vlaamse Waterweg nv. The golden award was for Amber Waterschoot who dived into the topic of autonomous inland navigation. Vid Tomljenovic analysed the container delivering problem at terminal using a Reinforcement Learning and Heuristic Approach and received the silver award. Nils Muyshondt took the bronze award home with his thesis about the impact of the 'Blauwe golf' on the profitability of an inland navigation company.
In 2024, the fifth Dennie Lockefeer Thesis Award was won by Victor Raeymakers, whose thesis examined who bears the risks of autonomous vessels in inland navigation. The award ceremony was hosted by golden partner Montea at the Koningin Elisabethzaal Muziekstudio.
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Thesis Award Winners
Do you want to know more about the different theses? The laureates made a short video explaining what they studied with their master's theses and what the prize meant to them. The videos can be found on the LinkedIn page of the Dennie Lockefeer chair or via the following links:
Check out some beautiful images of the award ceremonies in 2021 and the award ceremony in 2022 on our LinkedIn page!