Honorary Doctorate Awarded to Klaus Pinkau

The University of Greifswald’s Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences awarded an honorary doctorate to Klaus Pinkau, Scientific Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, on 12 June 1998.

Prof. Dr. h.c. Klaus Pinkau, Ph.D., D.Sc., born in Leipzig in 1931 and passed away in 2021, studied Mathematics in Tübingen and Physics in Hamburg and Bristol from 1951 to 1956 . He obtained a Diplom in Physics from the University of Hamburg in 1956, and a Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 1958. From 1958 to 1965, Klaus Pinkau conducted research primarily in the field of high-energy physics and cosmic radiation - from 1958 to 1960 as a research assistant at the University of Bristol (Great Britain), after habilitation in 1960 as a Privatdozent (senior lecturer) at the Christian Albrechts University Kiel (Germany) and from 1964 to 1965 as a Visiting Professor at Louisiana State University (USA). In 1965, he turned down a call to the position of Full Professor at Louisiana State University, where he served as Consulting Professor instead, in order to devote himself to high-energy astrophysics and gamma-ray astronomy as a scientific member of the Max Planck Society at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching. In 1969, Klaus Pinkau received a call to the Chair of Astronomy at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, which he turned down in favour of taking on the position of Deputy Director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. In the same year, Pinkau was appointed professor at the Technical University of Munich. From 1972 to 1977, Pinkau was Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics before turning to plasma physics and fusion research in 1981. He delivered important impulses as Scientific Director and Chairman of the Directorate and the Board of Directors at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching (1981 to 1999), as Chairman of the JET Council (1987 to 1990) and as Chairman of the Consultative Committee for the Fusion Programme (1990 to 1998). Klaus Pinkau was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bristol in 1985 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Greifswald in 1998.