Z ogromnym smutkiem i zaskoczeniem przyjełam wiadomość o odejściu Profesora Jerzego Jastrzębskiego. Zawsze bede mu wdzieczna za jego role w starcie mojej kariery naukowej. Jego silna motywacja i przekonanie w sukces były dla mnie zawsze inspiracja w budowaniu kariery zawodowej.
Przesylam wyrazy serdecznego zalu i szczerego wspolczucia.
Izabela Cydzik-Giacchin
Mediolan, Wlochy, 26 Wrzesien 2018
Professor Jerzy Jastrzębski passed away
It is with the deepest regret that we inform you that
Professor Jerzy Jastrzębski
passed away on the 19th of August 2018 in Warsaw
1934-2018
Professor Jerzy Jastrzębski was an outstanding physicist in the field of experimental nuclear physics, as well as in the applications of nuclear physics in medicine. He was one of the founders and a long-time director of the Heavy Ion Laboratory of the University of Warsaw. He passed away suddenly on 19th August 2018 in Warsaw.
Professor Jerzy Jastrzębski was a graduate of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. After obtaining a master’s degree in 1955 he started work at the newly founded Institute of Nuclear Research in Świerk, founded and directed by Professor Andrzej Sołtan. After just two years, in recognition of the progress he had made he was sent to one of the leading French nuclear physics laboratories at Orsay, near Paris, on a scholarship. Working there for several years in a group of excellent scientists, he became an expert in the field of nuclear spectroscopy, publishing many important results. They were the subject of his doctoral dissertation (1963) and habilitation thesis (1971). In 1981 he obtained the title of Professor. He worked at the Institute for Nuclear Research until 1983, moving then to the at that time newly emerging Heavy Ion Laboratory of the University of Warsaw, of which he became director a year later. He held this function until 2009 with a four-year break during 1996-2000. He used this break to conduct intensive scientific research on the distribution of matter in atomic nuclei with an innovative method using an antiproton beam. His research done at that time is still of the greatest interest.
Professor Jastrzębski, a scientist with great achievements, also understood the role of basic research in serving society. At the beginning of the 21st century he began work on the applications of radioactive isotopes in the diagnosis and therapy of cancer. He was the originator of the Radioisotopes Production and Research Center, which, thanks to his titanic work, persistence and perseverance was created within the Heavy Ion Laboratory. He established extensive collaborations with scientists from Poland and abroad specializing in nuclear medicine and radiochemistry, and within these collaborations he conducted intense interdisciplinary research related to the applications of nuclear methods in medicine. This activity in recent years placed him among the prominent experts in this field.
Professor Jastrzębski made an enormous contribution to the organization of cooperation between scientists from Poland and France. He was a founder and long-time member of the Polish-French Cooperation Commission. He was also a representative of Poland on the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee, establishing the permanent and important position of Polish nuclear physicists among their European colleagues.
His diverse activities were rewarded with numerous honours; to mention only a few: the Medal of the University of Warsaw, Palmes Academiques, the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Professor Jerzy Jastrzębski belonged to the pioneers of nuclear physics in Poland. He was an outstanding scientist with great achievements, imparting his knowledge to younger colleagues (he supervised over a dozen PhD students), originator, organizer and builder of national research infrastructures, and organizer of broad scientific cooperation. He devoted himself to each of these activities with great passion to the very end of his life.
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