On 22 June 2015 the Jagiellonian University was visited by the last year's Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Prof. Hiroshi Amano from Japan.
The scientist was received in Collegium Novum by the Rector of the Jagiellonian University Prof. Wojciech Nowak. The meeting also featured the JU Vice-Rector for Research and Structural Funds Prof. Stanisław Kistryn as well as members of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Prof. Izabela Grzegory, the Director of the Institute of High-Pressure Physics, Prof. Stanisław Filipek, and Prof. Michał Boćkowski.
The Rector told the guest about the past and present of the oldest university in Poland. The topics discussed at the meeting also included student exchange between Poland and Japan, far eastern studies at the Jagiellonian University, as well as applications of physics in medicine.
Prof. Hiroshi Amano (born 1960) began his academic career at Nagoya University, where he obtained a doctoral degree and was a research associate during the years 1988-1992. In 1982 he joined Prof. Isamu Akasaki's research group, and since then has been conducting research on group III nitride semiconductors. In 1992 Prof. Hiroshi Amano moved to Meijo University, where he worked as an Assistant Professor and, from 1998, as an Associate Professor. He gained full professorship in 2002. Since 2010 he has been a Professor of the Graduate School of Engineering at Nagoya University. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014, together with Prof. Isamu Akasaki and Prof. Shūji Nakamura, for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes.
