The Year 2025 in Review

Earlier news from late 2024 to December 2025 are summarised here, where we look back at what happened in the community during the past 15 months. We include reports from conferences, workshops and schools. In addition, we report on new faculty positions and the 2025 Blaumann Prize, which was awarded to Ali Akil and Qianhang Ding. Unfortunately, there were also two very sad news to share.

Sami Viollet, a PhD student in quantum gravity at Aix-Marseille University died on 02 February 2025 in a mountain accident. His teachers in Marseille, Alejandro Perez, who supervised Sami Viollet's PhD, and Simone Speziale, speak about a talented young men, who will be remembered for his dedication, passion, and intellect, which left a lasting impact on everyone who was close to him. Their message to the community is available here. Personal memories have been collected at sami-viollet.com/wiki/.

A couple of months earlier, Jerzy (Jurek) Lewandowski died on 08 October 2024. He is credited among the researchers who most contributed to the development of Loop Quantum Gravity. In October 2026, a year after his death, the Banach Center in Warsaw organized a conference in his memory. Tomasz Pawłowski wrote a report about the conference, which is available here.​​ More information about Jerzy Lewandowski can be found here. Personal memories have been collected at www.remembr.com/jerzy.lewandowski.