Vol.3, No 12, 2002 pp. 481-484
The 6th International Conference – Dynamical Systems, Theory and Applications
JUBILEE OF PROFESSOR JAN AWREJCEWICZ
Jacek Nowakowski
Technical University of Łodz, Department of Automatics and Biomechanics (K-16)
ul. Stefanowskiego 1/15, 90-924 Lodz, POLAND
Phone: +48(42) 631-23-51   Fax: +48(42) 631-22-25, E-mail: jacnow@ck-sg.p.lodz.pl

The 6th International Conference – Dynamical Systems, Theory and Applications was held in Lodz from 10th to 12th of December 2001. This biennial venue gathered over 50 participants from all continents of the world: both Americas, Africa, Asia, New Zealand and of course Europe.
The following plenary lectures were performed by invited scientists:
1. Trigger of Coupled Singularities by Katica (Stevanovic) Hedrih from Nis, Yugoslavia,
2. On the Development of Negative Pressure in Oil Film and the Characteristics of Journal Bearing by Tsuneo Someya from To-kyo, Japan,
3. An Overview of Motion Localization and Energy Pumping in Coupled Nonlinear Oscillators by Alexander Vakakis from Illinois, USA,
4.  Recent Results on Vibrating Problems with Limited Power Supply by Jose M. Balthazar from Rio Claro, Brasil,
5. Order Equations Method in Non-Stationary Gas Dynamics by Rem Barantsev from St. Peters-burg, Russia.
One of the important events of the Conference was the Jubilee session of Professor Jan Awre-jcewicz, head of the Department of Automatics and Biomechanics. Below I present short biography of the main animator of this Conference.
Jan Awrejcewicz was born on 26th September 1952 in Telesze in Wilno district. In 1957 he crossed border of 'new Poland' in a carriage with his parents and other repatriates. He graduated eight years of primary and four years of secondary school in Wlocławek. Due to his learning results he was awarded with a gold medal as the best secondary school's graduate.
In 1971 he began his studies at the Mechanical Department of the Technical University in Lodz and in 1975 he parallelly commenced philosophical studies at the Department of Philosophy and History of the University of Lodz. Just after finishing studies of Applied Mechanics he obtained the best result in exam to the Dynamics and Control of Machines Ph. D. Course, which was administered by the late Pro-fessor Zdzislaw Parszewski. In 1978 he finished philosophical studies with a very good grade. In 1978/1979 he entered Military School for Officers of Reserve in Olesnica and then a helicopter regiment in Leznica Wielka (near Leczyca) and he became lieutenant of air forces.
On 11 March 1981 he obtained Ph. D. at the Mechanical Department (MD) of the Technical University in Lodz. His Ph. D. thesis covered problems of self-excited vibrations caused by friction in assemblies with many degrees of freedom and was promoted by Professor Zdzislaw Parszewski.
Afterwards, he worked under guidance of Professor Janusz Szosland for half a year and starting from 1 October 1981 thanks to personal engagement and help from Professor Jerzy Leyko he commenced work as researcher in the Institute of Applied Mechanics at the Mechanical Depart-ment of the Technical University of Lodz. He spent first two years on self-education and gaining didactical experience. His first publications came out in 1983 (more detailed informations are available at web site www.p.lodz.pl/K16).
In 1990 he defended his habilitation thesis at the Mechanical Department of the Technical Uni-versity of Lodz. In 1994 he was distinguished with professor title by president Lech Walesa and then, in 1997 Ministry of Education of Poland awarded him with the title of ordinary professor.
Professor Jan Awrejcewicz is the author or co-author of 18 monographs, 2 scripts and editor of 2 sets of articles (published by Akademie Verlag and Springer Verlag), 9 edited volumes and sci-entific proceedings, 5 special editions of foreign journals and author or co-author of 6 other books. Moreover, he is the author or co-author of 230 articles in magazines and scientific proceedings and of other 76 publications.
His scientific works have been published in 35 different scientific magazines and proceedings of 90 conferences. Science has opened for him door to many travels abroad. He has been taken part in conferences and scientific visits in over 40 countries.
His scientific work covers mechanics, mathematics and applied physics, including biomechan-ics and automatics. His scientific achievements have been noticed abroad where he spent more than 7 years in different scientific centres. Professor Jan Awrejcewicz can fluently speak English, Rus-sian and German.
Among his international achievements one of the most important are obtaining grants in com-petitions for scientific research from all major world foundations, such as:
1. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Technische Universitaet Carolo zu Wilhelmina, Braunschweig, 2 years);
2. Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (The Tokyo University, Hongo, Bukyo-ku, 1 year);
3. Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (The Tokyo University, Komaba, Meguro-ku, Mitsubishi Endowed Chair, 9 months);
4. Region Rhones Alpes (Lyon; 6 months in 1995 and 3 months in 2001/2002);
5. The Kosciuszko Foundation Award, New York (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Uni-versity of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, 3 months);
6. The Fulbright Senior Grant Award (The University of California, Berkeley, 1 year);
As well important as these (from scientific point of view) were also half-year scientific train-ings performed in 1986 in the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Acad-emy of Sciences and in Stefan Banach's Mathematical Centre in Warsaw.
After split of the Institute of Applied Mechanics Professor Jan Awrejcewicz became head of Division of Dynamics of Machines and Control and then, in 1994-1998 he is the head of Division of Automatics and Biomechanics in the Institute of Turbomachinery. Since 1998 he has been head of the Department of Automatics and Biomechanics (K-16). This department  has been practically newly created and it is the greatest success of Professor. Currently the department leads to major research directions and didactical work which are dynamics, control and biomechanics. These re-search directions are currently one of the most fashionable in the world. Professor Jan Awrejcewicz was the initiator of creation of postgraduate studies, which have been conducted under his guidance since 1995. In 1996-1998 he was the head of Scientific-researching  Group for cooperation between Technical University of Lodz and the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Pol-ish Academy of Sciences. He has been member of two commissions of Scientific Research Com-mittee for a few years.
Moreover, he is a member of many national and international organizations, including their choices' – Mechanics' Committee of Polish Academy of Sciences (since 1993) and Nonlinear Vi-brations Committee of IFToMM (since 1995). For many years he has been the head of the Science Commission of the Mechanical Department of the Technical University in Lodz.
Professor Jan Awrejcewicz has organized 25 conferences (mainly international) or special ses-sions within these conferences. He is member of editor committees of 5 scientific journals and was a member of scientific committees of 25 different national and international conferences.
What's more, he has performed 35 lectures (45-60 minutes) at many famous foreign universities (Hannover, Braunschweig, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin, Lyon, Glasgow, Tokyo, Kyoto, Senday, Sap-poro, Fukuoka, Melbourne, Beijing, Taejon, Manila, Singapore, Toronto, Hamilton-New Zealand, Vienna, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Berkeley).
He also performed seven plenary lectures at national and international conferences.
Professor Jan Awrejcewicz has promoted 6 Ph. Ds. Beside many distinctions and international prizes he has been awarded the Golden Cross of Merit from President of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski in 1996. In 1998 he received the Ministry of Education prize for his scientific publica-tions and in 2001 he was awarded with the Cavalier's Cross of the Poland Restitution Medal.
The Scientific Committee of the 6th Conference decided to continue to arrange such a meeting of scientists working on nonlinear dynamics and control and the next conference will be organized in December 2003. Readers interested in receiving current informations concerning this venue I ask to visit the web page of the future conference: http://www.p.lodz.pl/UDYN03.


Participants of The 6th International Conference – Dynamical Systems, Theory and Applications, Łodz, Poland, 2001

In a break of the conference