Barbara Becker (1946)
Head of Department of Inorganic Chemistry, 2009-2017
She was born December 12, 1946 in Gdynia. All her education was placed in Tri-City: II High School in Gdynia graduated in 1964, and then studies at the Faculty of Chemistry of Gdansk University of Technology (Technical University of Gdańsk at that time). In 1969 she received a M.Sc., Eng. degree in Chemistry, specialty of Light Organic Synthesis. Immediately after graduation, she started to work at the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at Gdansk University of Technology, subsequently as an assistant trainee, assistant, and senior assistant. At the turn of 1975/76, she held a four-month internship at the University of Rostock (Germany). In 1978, she received her Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences (Faculty of Chemistry, GUT) on the basis of her doctoral dissertation, „Study of the reactivity of sulfur with arylhydrosilanes and its products – arylsilanethiols”, then she started work as an Assistant Professor. In 1983-1985 she was a postdoc in Département de Chimie Organique Fine, Laboratoire des Organométalliques, Université Montpellier II des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc in France. She returned there in September 1993 as a visiting professor. In the meantime, in 1989, the Council of the Faculty of Chemistry of Gdansk University of Technology admit her a PhD degree in organic chemistry on the basis of a dissertation entitled „Reactions of elemental sulfur with hydro- and polysilanes”. In the years 1991-1996 she was employed as an associate professor. In 1993 she visited the Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung in Stuttgart (Germany), and in June 2001, as a visiting scientist, was in the Institut für Anorganische Chemie, Rheinisch-Westfälischen Technische Hochschule in Aachen (also Germany). In the years 2002-2005 she served as Deputy Dean for Science at the Faculty of Chemistry of Gdansk University of Technology. She was also a Scientific Supervisor of scientific circle "Hybryda" – Student Section of the Gdansk Branch of the Polish Chemical Society since its inception in 2003 until 2016. In the years 2007-2011 she was employed as an GUT associate professor. The scientific title of the professor of chemical science was admited to her in 2008. In the years 2008-2017 she headed the Department of Inorganic Chemistry of the Gdansk University of Technology, since 2012 as a GUT full professor. Since 2016 she has been the President of the Gdansk Branch of the Polish Chemical Society. The Professor has numerous scientific and didactic publications as well as decorations, i.a. Golden Cross of Merit (1990), Medal of the Commission of National Education (1999) and Gold Medal for Long Service (2010), as well as many GUT Rector's awards – both scientific and didactic.
Promoted doctors:
- Jarosław Chojnacki, Ph.D., Eng. (1998)
- Katarzyna Baranowska, Ph.D. (2004)
- Agnieszka Pladzyk, Ph.D., Eng. (2003)
- Magdalena Kloskowska, Ph.D., Eng. (2005)
- Anna Kropidłowska, Ph.D., Eng. (2008)
- Luis Aparici Plaza, Ph.D. (2009)
- Andrzej Okuniewski, Ph.D., Eng. (2015)
Professor Barbara Becker has a daughter – Ewa (musician and pedagogue) and a grandson Mikołaj. Her hobbies include new technologies, bookbinding and popularization of science.
Author: Anna Mietlarek-Kropidłowska
English version: Andrzej Okuniewski & Agnieszka Pladzyk