The Institute of Solid State Physics (University of Latvia) and the Laboratory of Kinetics of Self-Organizing Systems announce with deep sorrow that our friend and colleague, PhD in physics, Full member of Latvian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Olgerts Dumbrajs, died on September 17 at the age of 80 after a serious illness. Olgerts was born in Riga in 1942 and devoted his whole life to science and education. He received PhD in physics (1971, Moscow State University) and then successfully worked in many International research centers, first in Dubna (Russia), and after 1977 in Switzerland, Finland, France, Denmark, Germany, Japan and China. He was an excellent scientist as well as an organizer and popularizer of science.
The main scientific interests of Olgerts included nuclear physics, theoretical physics, plasma physics, radio-physics (gyrotrons), chaos in physical systems: he has published more than 260 scientific papers in prestigious international journals.
He was internationally respected as an expert in these areas and served as a Member of the International Coordinating Committee for the Development Program for the Electron Cyclotron Wave Systems for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a Member of the Experts Group of the Fusion Program of the European Commission, a Member of the European Plasma Physics Theory Committee.
In 2005, after several decades of working abroad, Olgerts returned to Independent Latvia, his homeland, receiving a prestigious grant - a 24-month EURATOM scholarship for the research topic „Stochastization of magnetic field lines and magnetic reconnection”. Here he began his work at the Laboratory of the Kinetics of Self-Organizing Systems, in the Institute of Solid State Physics, which continued until the spring of this year.
The funeral will take place on October 8 in the Riga Crematorium (Lielajā atvadu zāle) at 12:00.
