Ernst Mach Honorary Medal for Merit in the Physical Sciences for Mr. Jiří J. Mareš

On the 12^th of December 2018, RNDr. Jiří J. Mareš, CSc. was awarded the Ernst Mach Honorary Medal for long-term merit in the development of his field in the physical sciences by prof. Eva Zažímalová, President of the Academy, on behalf of the Academy of Sciences. Mr. Jiří J. Mareš was among three other recognized scientists to receive the prestigious award. The others were prof. MUDr. Jiří Forejt, DrSc., in the medical sciences, doc. Ing. Jan Krekule, DrSc., in botanics, and prof. Ing. Zdeněk Vašíček, DrSc., in the geological sciences

„We pay particular attention to selecting the candidates both at a proposal by individual Units and on a recommendation by the Scientific or Academic Council. These personalities represent an exquisite company of those who have made a significant contribution to the development in their field," said Eva Zažímalová, President of the Academy of Sciences at the award ceremony held at the National Academy site at Národní třída, Prague.

The Ernst Mach Medal for Merits in Physical Sciences for Mr. Jiří J. Mareš. (Photo: Pavlína Jáchimová, Czech Academy of Sciences.)

Mr. Jiří J. Mareš was born in 1952 and joined the Czech Academy of Sciences after he completed his studies in 1977. From the very beginning of his work at the Institute, he has concentrated mainly on the experimental research of transport properties of semiconductors and, later, also on the research of nanomaterials. Besides his scientific activities, Mr. Jiří J. Mareš has also been actively involved in teaching. He has held a teaching post at several Universities, in particular at the Czech Technical University in Prague (ČVUT), University of West Bohemia (ZČU), Technical University of Liberec (TUL), University of New York in Prague (UNYP) and the Faculty of Humanities (FHS UK). He has published articles in renown international magazines such as New Journal of Physics or Physical Review. Mr. Jiří Mareš's scientific results include transport and magnetotransport in a wide range of magnetic fields, temperatures, resistances and frequencies. In his research, he tends to avoid the latest research topics to seek attention, immediate appraisal and high quotation rate, but instead he concentrates on working on fundamental and internationally acknowledged findings which tend to prove fruitful in a long-term perspective.

Mr. J. J. Mareš is known to be a very skilled experimenter with a unique ability to target the very foundations of physics with an outreach to other fields of sciences. Recently, he has significantly contributed to clarifying the mechanism of superconductivity in the boron-doped diamond. He also reopened the not yet fully resolved problem of relativistic transformation of temperature, which plays a decisive role in the relativistic physics of thermal phenomena and in cosmology. Mr. Jiří Mareš has also made a contribution to an experiment related to the fire making - based on an object thought to belong to the Tyrolean Iceman (Ötzi). The outreach to the other fields of science is also represented in his research on the use of a spillway, a centrally symmetrical object with a hole in the middle, used in medieval distaff.

Now Mr. Jiří Mr. J. Mareš has held the position of deputy director of the FZU for the Cukrovarnická Unit and the head of the Physics of Solid Particles Section, the second largest section at the FZU. As the head of the Section, he has intensively been involved in its development since 2009. It is due to his effort that the technical infrastructure of the Section has continually been improving in spite of the fact that the buildings in which the Section is located are situated at a heritage preserved site of the former Institute of Technical Physics in Prague 6 - Střešovice. Despite these complex conditions, he managed to have unique laboratories built in the underground level of the building, making the Section the winner of many prestigious grants funded by the European Union, the USA and Japan.

The Ernst Mach Medal for Merits in Physical Sciences for Mr. Jiří J. Mareš. (Photo: Pavlína Jáchimová, Czech Academy of Sciences.)