Poljak lecture
illustrare – promovere – inspirare
Poljak lecture 2025
The inaugural Poljak lecture took place on 13 May 2025 and was delivered by Jaroslav Nešetřil from Charles University Prague.
Programme
16:00 The life and work of Svatopluk Poljak
17:00 Inaugural Poljak lecture by Jaroslav Nešetřil:
“Subgraphs, orderings and homomorphisms”
About the Poljak lecture series
The Poljak lecture is a newly established lecture series taking place once a year. It is named in honour of Svatopluk Poljak, who was professor of mathematics at the University of Passau in the 1990s and made important contributions to diverse areas such as Combinatorics, Operations Research, Mathematical Programming, Theoretical Computer Science and Systems Theory. Each lecture is delivered by a highly distinguished mathematician or computer scientist whose work has influenced various fields. The envisioned purpose of the lectures is to illustrate the beauty of mathematical research and its significance to our society, to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and to inspire the next generation of researchers.
About Svatopluk Poljak
Svatopluk Poljak was born in Prague on October 9, 1951. He studied mathematics at Charles University in Prague and eventually completed his PhD in 1980 under the supervision of Jaroslav Nešetřil and Zdeněk Hedrlín. Afterwards, Poljak took a position at the Czech Technical University. In 1986, he moved back to Charles University for a senior research position. During this time, he was invited for extended academic visits to Kyoto, New Brunswick, Paris, Bonn and Taipei. Notably, he was awarded a Humboldt Fellowship for his 18-month stay at the University of Bonn. In 1994, Poljak was appointed as professor of mathematics at the University of Passau. He died on April 2, 1995 in a car accident.
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