On September 4, the Department of Physics and Technical Sciences of the Latvian Academy of Sciences (LAS) convened for an off-site meeting at the ISSP UL. This gathering gave attendees an in-depth look at the institute and its initiatives.
Director Dr. phys. Andris Anspoks opened the session by presenting the scientific activities and development strategy of the ISSP UL. Dr. sc. ing. Jānis Latvels, head of the Development Department, elaborated on the institute’s innovation and technology transfer strategy.
A key item on the agenda was the nomination of candidates for foreign membership in the LAS. Dr. phys. Aleksejs Kuzmins, head of the EXAFS Spectroscopy Laboratory, presented the candidacy of his former student, Dr. phys. Jānis Timošenko, a physics graduate from the University of Latvia, earned his doctorate there in 2015. He has also served as a postdoctoral fellow at two universities in New York. Currently leads a research group at the Fritz Haber Institute in Germany and teaches the "Introduction to Statistical Physics" course at the University of Latvia. Notably, Timošenko has been awarded the prestigious Farrell Lytle Award for young scientists in the field of X-ray spectroscopy for his innovative approaches to data analysis in X-ray absorption spectroscopy.
Jeļena Butikova, a leading researcher at the Spectroscopy Laboratory, and Dmitrijs Bočarovs, a leading researcher at the Laboratory of Computer Modeling of Electronic Structure of Solids, presented additional candidacies. They proposed Alma Dautbekova, a professor at the Faculty of Physics and Technical Sciences of the Eurasian National University (Kazakhstan); Miroslav Dramicanin, a professor at the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences (Serbia); and Michael Piasecki, an associate professor at the Department of Engineering at the City College of New York (USA).
The session also featured a report by Andrejs Siliņš, a leading scientist at the Optical Materials Laboratory and an LAS academician, who discussed the collaboration between the Ministry of Economics of Latvia and the LAS in developing an innovation system management model.
The meeting concluded with discussions on various topics, including the candidacies for LAS correspondent members in nanotechnology and plans for future commission meetings.
