Prof. Zbigniew Ciesielski

Zbigniew Ciesielski was born in Gdynia in 1934. In 1958 he graduated in mathematics form the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Only two years after his master degree, in 1960 he obtained his Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Władysław Orlicz one of the founders of functional analysis. In 1963 he defended his habilitation at the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. In 1969 he was appointed as an associate professor. In 1974 he became a full professor. In 1973 he became a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 1986 he is a full member of the Academy. In 2001 he became also a corresponding member of the Polish Academy of Art and Sciences and in 2013 he became a regular member.

Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics asked three referees to recommend Prof. Dr Z. Ciesielski for a Honorary Doctorate Degree (HDD). The referees are: Prof. Dr. Stanisław Kwapień form Warsaw Univeristy, Prof. Dr. Wiesław Peśniak and Prof. Dr. Józef Siciak. All the referees support strongly the candidate for the HDD.

Prof. Dr. Zbigniew Ciesielski is an outstanding mathematician. He is admired by Polish mathematicians as well as the international community. He published over 100 papers in prestigious journals. His interests are quite broad. He is an excellent expert in probability theory, stochastic processes, functional analysis, and related fields. His best well known results are devoted to Gaussian processes and Brownian motions, and the theory of Schauder bases.

In 1969 he constructed bases of the space of continuousle differeniable functions on the square. His papers about spline systems are of significant importance for the theory of vawelets, which in turn is used in image compression. His construction of the Wiener process is widely known as the Cieselski construction.

He has great achievements in the education of the younger generation of scientists. Thus, he was the supervisor of twelfe Ph.D. recipients, four of them being full profesors at this time; four others have succesfully defended their habilitation. Two of his students Prof. Dr. Stanisław Kwapień and Prof. Dr. Jerzy Zabczyk are full members of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The group of people who have been influenced by his work is close to 60 and includes his former Ph.D. students, their students etc. He was instrumental in establishing three probabilities centre: in Gdańsk, Warsaw and Toruń.

Professor Ciesielski was a member of many committees of international conferences, like for instance the First Congress of the Euorepean Mathematical Union (1992). He was also in the Jury of the Second Congress of the Euorepean Mathematical Union in Budapest in 1996.

He has been or was a member of the editorial boards of various journals like for example: ,,Studia Mathematica”, „Dissertationes Mathematicae”, „Biuletyn PAN”, „Probability and Mathematical Statistics”, „Analysis”, „Numerical Functional Analysis and Optimization”, „Approximation Theory and its Applications”. 

He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Vancouver in 1974.

 

He played an active role in the Polish and nnternation mathematical communities. Thus, he was the President of the Polish Mathematical Society from 1981 until 1983; he was a Vice Director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences; he was also in the Presidential Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 1995; he was a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Stefan Banach Mathematical Centre in Warsaw.

He received many prestigious awards: the Prime Minister Award for Excellence in Research in 2000; the First Class Governmental Polish Award in 1988; the Banach Medal in 1992; the Orlicz Medal in 1994, the Sierpiński Medal in 2000; the Award of the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation in New Yorke in 1983; the Heweliusz Award conferred by the City of Gdańsk in 1996. On the anniversary of 50 years after obtaining his Ph.D. he was conferred the renewal of his doctoral degree by the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań in 2011.

Most of his activity took place in the Gdańsk area collaborating with the Department of Mathematics of the Gdańsk University.

 

Here are some excerpts of the statements of the referees.

 

Prof. Dr. Stanisław Kwapień: ’’The influence of Professor Ciesielski on the progress of the Polish mathematics in the second half of the Twentieh century is hard to be overestimated. I am very happy that he will receive the HDD, a title that he fully deserves.’’

 

Prof. Dr. Wiesław Pleśniak: ’’By awarding this very prestigious title, Gdańsk University recognizes his devoted and fruitful contribution to the Polish and International Mathematics, and the special role he has played to the Gdańsk community. I strongly support awarding him the HDD.’’

 

Prof. Józef Siciak: ’’His high recognition in the international mathematical community and his outstanding contributions to mathematics fully justify conferring him the HDD by the University of Gdańsk.’’