On November 12th 2010 a ceremonial session of the Scientific Board of the University took place at the premises of the Great Auditorium at the Rectorate of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice on the occasion of awarding the honorary degree “Doctor honoris causa” to Prof. Mark William Meisel from the University of Florida, Gainsville, in the field of physics.
Prof. Mark William Meisel was born in Porthsmouth, Virginia, USA in 1958. He graduated from the Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. His working career is closely connected to the University of Florida, Gainsville, where he has been a professor of physics since 1998. In 2008 he achieved the position of Colonel Allan R. and Margaret G. Crow Term Professor at College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Florida.
Prof. Meisel ranks among important experts in the area of ultralow temperature physics, quantum fluids and solids and quantum low dimensional magnetism. He is an outstanding university educator and experimental physicist, who takes up research interest in wide range of subjects from superfluid 3He physics through quantum magnetism and chemistry of lowdimensional magnetic systems, biophysics, to recently very popular nanophysics.
In 2009 Prof. Meisel was given an award of American Physical Society for significant contribution to research in the field of magnetic and magneto-optic qualities of low dimensional materials and nanostructures.
Prof. Mark William Meisel works currently at the University of Florida, as well as in National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fl., where he is a member of NHMFL Dirac Fellowship selection commitee. He also has been a member and chairman of several organisational bodies of international conferences and workshops. From 1990 to 1992 and from 1996 to 1998 he was the director of Center of ultra-low temperature physics at Florida University in Gainsville. He significantly contributes to organising cooperation among research centres in the US and Slovakia. Professor Meisel is also giving lectures at the University in Evanstone and currently he is a professor at the University of Florida.
He is also involved in the field of didactics of physics at the high school and university level, a regular lecturer of the summer schools and postgraduate courses for high school teachers. He has given several lectures at the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava and Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. He also contributed to creating the Low temperature physics center – Center of Excellence of Faculty of Science of UPJŠ as well as the Institute of Experimental Physics of Slovak academy of Sciences.
Invaluable are his advice, insights and observations of the educational work and his support of students’ mobility between the US and Slovak universities.
Given that Prof. Mark William Meisel is a world renowned scientist and educator in the field of condensed mater physics system and his activity has contributed significantly to building the Center of Low temperature physics in Košice, he has been awarded honorary title of Doctor honoris causa of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.
