Tuesday, 17 February 2026 Dr. Kenny Bešter Štorgel is the first recipient of the Vidav Award

The committee composed of Prof. Dr. Sergio Cabello Justo, Prof. Dr. Aleksey Kostenko, and Prof. Dr. Marjeta Kramar-Fijavž has selected Dr. Kenny Bešter Štorgel, assistant with a PhD at UP FAMNIT, as the first recipient of the Ivan Vidav Award.

The new distinction for outstanding research achievements of early-career mathematicians who have carried out a significant part of their research at Slovenian institutions will, from this year onward, be awarded every three years by DMFA Slovenia. This year’s laureate will receive the award at the society’s general assembly on Tuesday, March 17, at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Ljubljana, where he will also present his research work.

PhD in graph theory

In 2023, as a student of the doctoral study programme Mathematical Sciences at UP FAMNIT, Dr. Bešter Štorgel successfully defended his doctoral dissertation titled Certain Graph-Theoretic Invariants and Decompositions: From Structure to Bounds and Algorithms, supervised by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Borut Lužar and co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Martin Milanič.

During his doctoral studies, he was employed as a young researcher at the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto. Prior to this, he also completed his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and his master’s degree in Mathematical Sciences at our faculty. He is currently employed at UP FAMNIT and at the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto, where he teaches courses related to mathematics and computer science. His research interests include structural, algorithmic, and chromatic graph theory.

Congratulations!