Biography:Katalin Balázsi

From HandWiki
Short description: Hungarian material scientist
Balázsi in 2018

Katalin Balázsi (née Sedláčková; born 1978) is a Slovakia-born Hungarian material scientist. She is the head of the Thin Film Physics department in the Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, a component of the Centre for Energy Research, Eötvös Lóránd Research Network. She has also served as the President of the Association of Hungarian Women in Science (2018-2021).

Early life

Balázsi was born in Šahy (Ipolyság), Slovakia in 1978.[1] While in elementary school, she represented her school in mathematics competitions. For high school, her father enrolled her in an electrician high school: there were four other girls in her class, and thirty-two boys. She graduated with the top ranking in her class.[2]

Balázsi completed her university degrees at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU). In 2000, she received a bachelor's degree in Electromaterials Engineering; she received a master's degree in materials science in 2002 from the same.[3] During her master's degree, Balázsi worked as a technician at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. She then became a researcher at the Academy,[2] using transmission electron microscopy to characterise the structures of nanomaterials; she received her doctorate in materials science from the STU in 2005.[4] The Institute of Electrical Engineering at the Academy named her the "Young Researcher".[3]

Career

In 2006, Balázsi became a research fellow at the Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, part of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She was appointed as a senior scientist at the Institute's Centre for Energy Research in 2012.[3] Besides her work with electron microscopy, Balázsi has also studied the development of different ceramic materials.[5]

Balázsi and nine other female scientists founded the Association of Hungarian Women in Science in 2008 to address the national gender imbalance in Hungary's science sector; this Association won the first Nature Research Innovating Science Award in 2018.[6][7] She has served as the Association's president from 2018 to 2021.[8] She also received the 2021 Acta Materialia Mary Fortune Global Diversity Medal.[3]

In 2021, she became the second Hungarian fellow of the European Ceramic Society (ECerS).[9] She is a board member of the European Platform of Women Scientists (EPWS).[10] She has also been secretary of the Hungarian Society for Material Sciences (2013-2020), as well as secretary and treasurer of the Hungarian Microscopic Society (2018-2022).[8]

Personal life

Her husband Csaba Balázsi is also a scientist. They have two sons.[11] Besides Hungarian, she speaks Slovak, Czech, and English.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Balázsi, Katalin (2013-05-09). "Tudományos önéletrajz" (in hu). http://anyagokvilaga.hu/balazsiCV.pdf. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 Bosworth, Katherine (2021-06-23). "The Drive for More Female Engineers—Interview with Dr. Katalin Balazsi" (in en-US). https://blog.mdpi.com/2021/06/23/the-drive-for-more-female-engineers-interview-with-dr-katalin-balazsi/. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Katalin Balázsi - 2021 Acta Materialia Mary Fortune Global Diversity Medal Recipient". 2020-10-07. https://www.materialstoday.com/amorphous/news/katalin-balzsi-2021/. 
  4. Cecchi, Giovanna (2017-03-21). "Dr. Katalin Balázsi" (in en-US). https://www.crm-extreme.eu/WP/crm_member/dr-katalin-balazsi/. 
  5. "ACerS Awards and Honors > Katalin Balázsi" (in en-US). https://ceramics.org/award-winners/katalin-balazsi. 
  6. Dance, Amber (2018-10-30). "Hungarian association wins prize for promoting participation of women in science" (in en). Nature 563 (7729): 147–148. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-07199-y. PMID 30377331. Bibcode2018Natur.563..147D. 
  7. "Podcast: A winning team of innovators who promote women in science" (in en). Nature. 2018-10-31. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-07579-4. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07579-4. 
  8. 8.0 8.1 "People > Katalin Balazsi" (in en-US). https://ceramics.org/person/katalin-balazsi. 
  9. Szabolics, Tamás (2021-06-01). "Dr. Katalin Balázsi was elected as Fellow by the European Ceramic Society" (in en-GB). https://www.ek-cer.hu/en/2021/06/01/dr-katalin-balazsi-was-elected-as-fellow-by-the-european-ceramic-society/. 
  10. "Dr. Katalin Balázsi, EPWS Board member, awarded by Acta Materialia" (in en-US). 2020-10-06. https://epws.org/dr-katalin-balazsi-awarded/. 
  11. "Balázsi Katalin" (in hu). 2019-04-30. https://figyelo.hu/cappuccino/balazsi-katalin-10229/. 

External links