Professor Leszek Sirko assumed the position of director of the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences from the 1th November 2024 for a four-year term, i.e. until the 31th of October 2028. The President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Professor Marek Konarzewski, entrusted the position of director to Professor Sirko as a result of the competition procedure conducted by the Polish Academy of Sciences in the first half of this year.
Leszek Sirko is a physicist, titular professor in the field of physical sciences. His interests and extensive scientific achievements focus on research and modeling of chaos phenomena, among others, with his colleagues he introduced a quantum graph simulator to the world literature and experimental practice, demonstrating the model equivalence of quantum graphs and microwave networks, which resulted in a breakthrough in experimental research on one-dimensional systems. He has led the work of the nonlinear phenomena physics team at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences for many years. Leszek Sirko was born in 1956 in Włodawa. He graduated in experimental physics from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw in 1980. In 1986, he defended his doctorate in physics at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he also obtained his postdoctoral degree, the habilitation, in 1995. Professor Sirko is a laureate of the PTF award and the award of Department III of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He participated in numerous foreign internships, including at the Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik in Garching and at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a co-organizer of a number of international conferences on the physics and simulation of nonlinear phenomena, a member of a number of scientific councils of Polish Academy of Sciences institutes. In the years 2008 - 2014 Sirko was the coordinator of the key project of the Operational Program Innovative Economy "Quantum semiconductor nanostructures for applications in biology and medicine - Development and commercialization of a new generation of molecular diagnostic devices based on new Polish semiconductor devices". Subsequently, in 2013-2017 he managed the project "European Action towards Leading Centre for Innovative Materials" (EAgLE) within the EU 7th Framework Program. Professor Sirko was the deputy director for scientific affairs of the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2004 - 2011 , was the director of the Institute in 2011-2014 and he was the deputy minister of science and higher education in Polish Government, in 2015-16. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2013. In the years 2018-2021 he was the president of the Polish Physical Society (PTF), and since 2022 he has been the honorary president of the PTF.
We would like to congratulate the newly appointed director on his election and wish him outstanding scientific success and fruitful work in his new position.
