The Senate of Eötvös Loránd University is holding a ceremonial assembly to commemorate the university's founding in 1635. The event will be opened by Rector Lénárd Darázs.
A highlighted part of the event is the Pázmány Day professional lecture, which will be given by university professor Zsolt Frei (ELTE TTK), titled Ten Years after the First Observations: Gravitational-Wave Astrophysics and What Comes Next. The university will honor the lecturer with the Jubilee Silver Memorial Medal.
Zsolt Frei is a full professor at the Department of Atomic Physics at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE). He earned his PhD at Princeton University. His research extends to numerous branches of astrophysics and cosmology.
In his early work, he studied the distribution of neutron stars and the behavior of intergalactic matter. He later played a key role in developing methods for the automatic classification of galaxies, which support the processing of data from large sky surveys. His subsequent research has included the analysis of infrared images of galaxies, modeling the early evolution of the Universe, and studying the cosmic microwave background radiation.
He has also achieved significant results in the theoretical study of gravitational wave sources and their observability. Together with his research group, he joined the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, which focuses on the detection and astrophysical applications of gravitational waves.
He has been instrumental in establishing several major research infrastructures and projects, such as computational astrophysics laboratories and international research programs. His scientific achievements are reflected in more than 130,000 citations to his publications, an h-index of 126, the title of Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as well as the Széchenyi Prize and the Prima Primissima Award.
As part of the General Assembly, the ceremonial conferment of the titles “doctor et professor honoris causa” and “doctor honoris causa” will take place for the following internationally recognized experts:
- Michał Bilewicz, Professor at the University of Warsaw
- Dalibor Čepulo, Professor Emeritus at the University of Zagreb
- Jürgen Paul Schwindt, Professor at Heidelberg University
- Peter S. Ungar, Professor at the University of Arkansas
- António Emílio Leite Couto, writer and recipient of the Camões Prize
You can read about the University’s new and former honorary doctors at the following link.
The ceremony will feature a performance by the choir of the Institute of Art Mediation and Music of the Faculty of Humanities at Eötvös Loránd University, conducted by Sándor Kabdebó, habilitated associate professor.