The 2019 Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Beam Physics Award of the Americal Physical Society has been awarded to Giada Cantono “for pioneering work on surface-plasmon enhanced radiation sources in ultrashort laser-grating interaction at relativistically strong intensities, which led to the demonstration of a source of beamed, quasi-collinear high charge multi-MeV electron bunches and attosecond XUV photon bursts.” Giada has worked as a research associate to CNR/INO under the co-supervision of Andrea Macchi and of Tiberio Ceccotti (CEA Saclay, France)