Professor Jiří Barek, a prominent Czech analytical chemist and long-time editor of Chemicke Listy, turns 75 on 2 October 2024
The years are flying by, mysteriously faster in old age than in youth, and the eminent Czech analytical chemist Professor Jiří Barek turns 75 in October. He is only 25 years younger than the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the Charles University, which this year celebrates one century of its independent existence. Since his student days, Prof. Barek has spent his entire professional life at this department. Five years ago, on the occasion of Prof. Barek's seventieth birthday, a series of celebratory articles were published in Chemicke Listy, where almost everything was said about the life of the celebrated scientist (Chem. Listy 113, 635-638 (2019)), and so it only remains to recapitulate the next five years of his prolific life. Significant global events of the recent past (covida pandemic) and present (war in Ukraine) have affected and are affecting the lives of all of us. Prof. Barek had to temporarily interrupt his favourite travel activities and foreign collaborations, but he is gradually returning to them. He is still an active editor of Chemicke Listy and chairman of the Czech Chemical Society's Analytical Chemistry Expert Group. In 2022, he was awarded the Hanuš Memorial Medal, which is given to distinguished domestic and foreign scientists in the field of chemistry in recognition of their professional and teaching activities.
Prof. Barek is still very active in terms of professional and organizational activities and his enthusiasm for the cause, his undying vigour and the breadth of his activities could be envied even by some of his colleagues several decades younger. Just to mention a few, his 78 publications from 2019–2024 listed in the Web of Science database, his extensive work on updating the IUPAC nomenclature (Terminology of Electrochemical Methods of Analysis) within the "Division V" of this organization, his activities within the European Chemical Society EuChemS (Division of Analytical Chemistry, Working Group on Electroanalytical Chemistry), and the European Chemistry Thematic Network Association (ECTNA) and the European Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Education Network (EC2E2N), membership of the organising committees of a number of international conferences (including many invited lectures) and the organisation of the annual Karel Štulík Prize and Metrohm Prize competitions. By regularly reporting on all his activities on the pages of the Bulletin of the Association of Czech Chemical Societies, he can be considered without exaggeration one of the largest and most frequent contributors to the various sections of this periodical.
He also enjoys spending time at his cottage in the Sázava River, where he invited the editorial circle of the Chemicke Listy to a retreat this summer, and he still enjoys beer of all brands. On behalf of our friends, we wish Jiří many more long years and undying vigour for both work and life. And we trust that he will read with interest and pleasure the several excellent and thematically diverse (electro)analytical contributions in this and the next issue of the Chemicke Listy, which are dedicated to his person, his life's work and his life anniversary.
Bohumil Kratochvíl and Vlastimil Vyskočil
