The Department of Physics PhD Council

The Department of Physics PhD Council (in Swedish "Fysikums doktorandråd") is the assembly of all PhD students at the Department of Physics at Stockholm University. Its purpose is to represent the interests of the PhD students in the different committees, boards and councils within the department and the university. This page is mantained by the PhD Council representative.

The PhD council consists of all enrolled PhD students at the Deparment of Physics and is our democratic channel for making our voices heard within the department.

Annually (in the spring), the PhD council elects a PhD-council board, which is responsible for the coordination of the representation of PhD students in the department as well as the exchange of useful information and the organization of social and educational activities.

At the same meeting, the PhD-student representatives for all committees within the department are elected. These representatives are responsible for attending committee meetings to provide a PhD-student perspective, and for reporting important information to the PhD council board.

In many cases the representative work is compensated with “prolongation” days to a PhD contract; i.e. representative work will simply make your employment slightly longer, rather than taking up your dedicated research time.

The PhD-council board has the task of coordinating the representation of PhD students at the department, this means; the organization of elections of representatives in the various committees at the Deparment of Physics, upholding contact with all representatives, making sure that the interests of the PhD-students are represented, and informing all PhD-students on relevant issues (such as changes in regulations, important events etc).

To fulfill these tasks the PhD council board convenes once every month and can appoint smaller working groups to focus on specific issues if necessary. The Fysikum board and each advisory committee has as at least one PhD-representative which means that we have the opportunity to directly affect both minor and major decisions at the Deparment of Physics.

Additionally, the PhD-council board has also taken on the task of organizing social and educational activities for PhD students.

The complete council (i.e. all PhD students) convenes in full two times per year: once in the spring to elect new representatives in the department, and once in the fall to nominate representatives to the faculty level boards.

These meetings are an excellent opportunity to distribute critical information and should therefore be attended by as many PhD students as possible!

You can contact the board representative from your own (or any other) division if you need help to find information or want to raise any issue or topic to the council's attention: Perhaps you have an idea for how to improve the current PhD courses, or maybe you need help to deal with a difficult situation where the rules are not currently clear? - We will help you out.

You can reach the council on phdcouncil@fysik.su.se.

The council's Presidium can be reached at this address: presidium.phdcouncil@fysik.su.se

The board convenes on a monthly basis.

Board representatives

  • Astroparticle and Elementary Particle Physics (ELPA)
  • Atomic Physics (Atom)
  • Chemical Physics (Chem)
  • Condensed Matter and Quantum Optics (KOMKO)
  • Cosmology, particle Astrophysics and Strings (CoPS)
  • Instrumentation Physics (Instrument)
  • Medical Radiation Physics (MSF)

(Contact information for all SU employes is available at personalsok.su.se).

The current representatives (academic year 2024-2025) are:

Chair: Gandharva Appagere (Instrumentation)
Vice-chair: Arun Subramani (AtomPhys)
Cashier: Jerzy Paczos (KOMKO)

Regular members:

Christopher Ekman (KOMKO)
Pranay Nayak (KOMKO)
Anna Sandberg (KOMKO)
Nikolaos Vassardanis (ChemPhys)
Ludwig Neste (ELPA)
Alessandro Montella (ELPA)
Maria Zelenayova (KOMKO)

Last updated: 2025-10-22

Source: Department of Physics

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