Best presentation and poster award for CEM PhD- and master student at NCR days 2026 -Navigating Rivers

During the annual conference of the Netherlands Centre for River Studies, NCR Days 2026, PhD candidate Marthe Oldenhof won the Best Presentation award while CEM master student Lars Paternotte won the Best Poster award.

Marthe won the award with her presentation “Experimental investigation of the flow field in a scour hole in a river”. Marthe conducted experiments over the past 6 months at the Technische Universität Wien in Vienna in which she examined the evolution of scour holes. In her presentation, Marthe showed how she mimicked a scour hole in a flume. She showed preliminary results on the measured flow velocities in a scour hole and its morphodynamic evolution. The study is part of the NWO perspectief programme Future Flood Risk Management Technologies, a collaboration between universities and companies to improve flood safety in the Netherlands. Marthe is supervised by Jord Warmink and Suzanne Hulscher (UT).

Lars won the award with his poster about “Hydro- and morphodynamic LES modelling of scour holes in rivers”. Lars is currently working on his master’s thesis in collaboration with HKV and Svašek Hydraulics. After the summer flood in 2021 in Limburg, 15 deep scour holes formed in the riverbed. Lars is simulating the formation of these scour holes in a numerical hydro- and morphodynamic model. Lars is supervised by Marthe Oldenhof and Jord Warmink (UT).

Besides the award for best poster and best presentation, the CEM department was well-represented at the conference. There were also presentations by Borjana Bogatinoska, Niels Welsch, Leon Besseling and Rutger Siemes, and there were also posters by Ali Fakhri, Joe Nicholas and Tim van Kampen. We look back at a successful edition of the annual NCR days.