Otokar Dragoun is the first emeritus scientist/scholar at the NPI of the CAS

On Tuesday, October 18, 2022, Ing. Otokar Dragoun, DrSc. on the proposal of the NPI management, was appointed by the Czech Academy of Sciences as an emeritus scientist/scholar of the CAS. This is the very first appointment to this position in the NPI on the basis of the Career Development Rules of the CAS.

O. Dragoun was born on March 15, 1937 in Sedlec. He joined the NPI (former Institute of Nuclear Research) after his graduation in 1956, almost simultaneously with the start of operation of the Řež scientific area. In the years 1957–1962, O. Dragoun studied nuclear physics at the former Faculty of Nuclear and Technical Physics (nowadays FNSPE CTU in Prague). In 1967, he received the scientific rank of Candidate of Mathematical-Physical Sciences in the field of experimental physics, in 1985 the rank of Doctor of Physical-Mathematical Sciences on the basis of his dissertation "Internal conversion of gamma radiation". In the years 1972–2005, O. Dragoun led a scientific group at the Department of Nuclear Spectroscopy of the NPI, which experimentally and theoretically researched mentioned topic.

The culmination of his scientific career was the significant involvement of O. Dragoun and his team in the international KATRIN (Karlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment) at KIT Karlsruhe, where he was at the origin of the entire experiment, the goal of which is to significantly refine the determination of the electron neutrino mass.

O. Dragoun is the author of more than 120 publications in high-impact journals. He also delivered a number of invited lectures at international conferences and many popularization lectures, supervised six dissertations. He also received several awards, one of the most recent being this year's medal of the physics section of the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists for experimental research on the mass of neutrinos.

Congratulations!