 | Graduate of Gdańsk University of Technology (1934); a construction engineer. He designed port structures in Gdynia and built an airframe factory in Mielec. He spent the war in an Oflag prisoner-of-war camp, where he devoted his time to preparing the theses for his later dissertation and habilitation degree, which he received just after the war in September-December 1945, from the Warsaw University of Technology. Since 1945, at the Gdańsk University of Technology: Associate Professor (1947), Head of the Structural Mechanics Department, Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering (1947-1949) and Vice-Rector (1949-1952). In 1952-1955, he headed the Department of Structural Mechanics at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology. In 1955-1981, he joined the University of Warsaw, where he took up the position of: head of the Department of Elasticity and Viscosity Theory (1955-1969), the Department
of Solid Mechanics (1969-1981) and director of the Institute of Mechanics (1969-1978). Since 1952, he was a corresponding member, and since 1956 - a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Secretary of Research of the Department IV of Technical Sciences (1956-1968). At the Polish Academy of Sciences, he held the following positions: Secretary of Research (1956-1968), vice-president (1969-1977) and president (1978-1980). He was also one of the founding fathers of the IPPT: founder and manager of the Laboratory of Theory of Elasticity, mentor of the Department of Theory of Continuous Media. For many years, he chaired the IPPT Scientific Council.
Creator of the Polish school of thermal elasticity and asymmetrical elasticity and initiator of research in the theory of interconnected fields. He authored over 200 publications, including several monographs, which were translated into many languages. He is also the author of well-known academic textbooks, reprinted in Poland and abroad. He supervised 28 dissertations. Honorary doctor (doctor honoris causa) of ten universities and a member of three foreign academies of sciences. Honoured with the highest state awards, he was a two-time laureate of the First Class State Award (1955 and 1964). |
