Ing. Karel Jungwirth, DrSc.

Dr Karel Jungwirth graduated from the Faculty of Technical and Nuclear Physics of the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1963 and started to work as a researcher at the Institute of Plasma Physics where he was appointed the head of its Laser Plasma Department. He obtained the Ph.D. degree in 1966 and the DrSc. degree in 1992 in physical and mathematical sciences. He served as a director of the Institute of Physics of the ASCR for term 2001–2006 and remained at this post till May 2007. Ten years ago he founded and became a director of the PALS Research Centre, a joint laboratory of the Institutes of Physics and Plasma Physics ASCR.

During his professional career he has visited a series of foreign research institutes, predominantly of the Soviet Atomic Commission and Academy of Sciences. In 1990–1991 he worked and lectured at the University of Texas and at the Institute for Fusion Studies in Austin.

Though he is a theoretical physicist, he has been actively performing experiments for more than four decades. He has been a coordinator of the (Research LN00A100) Laser Plasma Centre LC528 projects. He was PALS Research Center Access project manager already in the 5th FP and has continued in the 6th and 7th FP as a member of the Management board of the LASERLAB-EUROPE consortium.

He is the author or co-author of more than 150 articles in impact journals and of contributions at conferences, including a monograph (published in Moscow in 1990 and in New York in 1993) which earned him a remarkable international reputation in the hot and laser plasma research and high power laser fields with over 600 citations just during the last decade.

He has also been awarded in his country: 1982 – Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences Prize for the work on physics and technique of pulsed power system; 1986 – Prize of the Czechoslovak Foundation for Scientific Literature; 2001 – the Czech Technical University in Prague Medal, and the Engineering Academy of the Czech Republic Prize for the foundation of the Research Centre PALS.

After the November 1989, Dr Jungwirth was an elected member of the Academy Institutes Representatives. He was the head of the Division of Mathematics, Physical and Earth Sciences in years 1991–2001, a member of the Presidium of the Academy Council since 1993, and the Vice President of the ASCR from 1997 till 2001. He has been a member and a chairman of several scientific committees (DrSc., DSc., CSc., Ph.D., R&D Council of the Government of the CR and its Natural Sciences and Engineering Committee, and of several scientific boards at universities and in research institutes). He is a founding member of the Engineering Academy of the Czech Republic, and was elected as its first Vice President in 1995 and re-elected in 1999. He has often participated in activities of various committees both domestic and international evaluating projects and institutes, e.g. as a permanent member of the International Advisory Committee since 1992, and he also chaired the prestigious International Conference on High Power Particle Beams in 1996. He represented the Czech Republic in the EURATOM committee in the years 1999–2002 and in the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) 2003–2006. From 2008 he participates in the ESFRI Roadmap and the FP 7 projects as a member of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) and in the HiPER Steering Committees.

Dr. Jungwirth can speak English, German, Russian, French and Spanish.