József Pálinkás

József Pálinkás (Photo: 2014)

József Pálinkás (born September 18, 1952 in Galvács ) is a Hungarian physicist , science manager and politician . From 2001 to 2002 he was Minister of Education in his country and from 2008 to 2014 President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences .

Life

Study and start of the scientific career

József Pálinkás studied physics at the József Attila University in Szeged , which he left in 1977 with a master's degree. He then took up a position at the nuclear research institute ATOMKI of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Debrecen . In 1981 he received his doctorate from Lajos Kossuth University in Debrecen.

In the 1980s, Pálinkás spent research stays in western countries while he continued to work at ATOMKI. From 1983 to 1985 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University , and from 1988 to 1989 as a visiting scientist at the Manne Siegbahn Institute in Stockholm, Sweden .

Senior positions in research and teaching

In 1989 the Academy of Sciences awarded him its doctorate. In 1991 he became director of the Institute for Nuclear Physics and remained in this position until 1996. After completing his habilitation in 1994, he took up a research professorship at ATOMKI in 1995 and also became professor of physics at Kossuth University.

In 1995 the Academy appointed him a corresponding member and in 2004 a full member. From 2008 to 2014 he was President of the Academy.

From 1996 to 1997 he was President of the University of Debrecen ; also in 1996 he became head of the experimental physics department of the university's natural science faculty. He held this position until 2013. From 2006 to 2013 he was director of the Faculty's Institute of Physics.

Political offices

From 1998 to 2001 József Pálinkás was State Secretary for Education, then from 2001 to 2002 Minister of Education.

In 2014 he became government representative for research, development and innovation. In 2015 he became the founding president of the National Office for Research, Development and Innovation ( Hungarian: Nemzeti Kutatási Fejlesztési és Innovációs Hivatal ). His successor was Zoltán Birkner on July 1, 2018 .

Scientific achievements

József Pálinkás' research areas were initially the investigation of electron-atom collisions and ion-atom collisions using X-ray spectroscopy and electron spectroscopy , later solid-state physics , more precisely the electronic structure of atoms and molecules in solids, and, since the mid-1990s, high-energy physics . From 1995 he was involved in the search for the Higgs boson at the international elementary particle research facility CERN , initially up to 2000 in the OPAL experiment of the LEP storage ring, from 2006 to 2015 in the CMS experiment of the Large Hadron Collider . He was also involved in a CERN experiment to generate quark-gluon-plasma states.

Pálinkás was or is a member of numerous scientific societies , learned societies and committees. He was a member of the IUPAP Commission for Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, the European Committee for Accelerators of the Future and the International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions . From 2009 to 2014 he was chairman of the World Science Forum . He has been a member of the Academia Europaea since 2009 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Dr. József Pálinkás - President. National Research, Development and Innovation Office, December 3, 2017, archived from the original January 7, 2018 ; accessed on April 22, 2019 (English).  
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Dr. József Pálinkás - President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In: 80th Academy Presidents' Forum. Academia Sinica , 2008, accessed January 6, 2018 .  
3. ↑ Dr. Zoltán Birkner. National Research, Development and Innovation Office, July 24, 2018, accessed April 22, 2019 .  
4. ↑ Jozsef Palinkas. Academia Europaea , accessed January 7, 2017 .