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- 10.10.2011 Farewell Party of Prof. Bo Barker J
10.10.2011 Farewell Party of Prof. Bo Barker Jørgensen
Prof Dr. Bo Barker Jørgensen celebrated his farewell on September 22, 2011, on the occasion of his 65th birthday and after almost 20 year as Director of the Max Planck Insitute for Marine Microbiology and head of the Biogeochemistry Department.
This special day not only meant a reunion with friends, colleagues and former students who travelled from afar, but a small symposium offered the assembled guests a retrospective on Professor Jørgensen’s research, both by sea and at land. The limited time allowed for an only small selection of talks; nonetheless, a variety of discoveries, highlights, and shared research experiences in remote places far away from equipped laboratories were presented. And always, Bo Barker Jørgensen was referred to as mentor and inspiration. Professor Jørgensen replied in kind with a review of the founding years of the institute. The audience gained impressions captured by Prof. Jørgensen as founding director: views into early, provisional laboratories, to the construction of the institute, and unremarked, to young people absorbed in their work (and every once in a while in party mood). Yet, it was more than a day of vivid remembrances. Discoveries go on, they motivate others. Professor Jørgensen expressed his pleasure that he will be able to continue science as the leader of a center for deep marine biosphere geomicrobiology research in his home university in Aarhus. This bond still will tie him to the MPI, which was another good reason to continue the celebration after the official symposium.
This special day not only meant a reunion with friends, colleagues and former students who travelled from afar, but a small symposium offered the assembled guests a retrospective on Professor Jørgensen’s research, both by sea and at land. The limited time allowed for an only small selection of talks; nonetheless, a variety of discoveries, highlights, and shared research experiences in remote places far away from equipped laboratories were presented. And always, Bo Barker Jørgensen was referred to as mentor and inspiration. Professor Jørgensen replied in kind with a review of the founding years of the institute. The audience gained impressions captured by Prof. Jørgensen as founding director: views into early, provisional laboratories, to the construction of the institute, and unremarked, to young people absorbed in their work (and every once in a while in party mood). Yet, it was more than a day of vivid remembrances. Discoveries go on, they motivate others. Professor Jørgensen expressed his pleasure that he will be able to continue science as the leader of a center for deep marine biosphere geomicrobiology research in his home university in Aarhus. This bond still will tie him to the MPI, which was another good reason to continue the celebration after the official symposium.
Prof. Bo Barker Jørgensen (left) and Prof. Gotthilf Hempel, who paved the way for the Max Planck Institute in Bremen, on their way to the farewell symposium.
Some of Bo Barker Jørgensens's guests (from left: Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Gotthilf Hempel, Prof. Dr. Kai Bischof, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Hagen, Prof. Dr. Winfried Müller, Prof. Dr. Michael Friedrich, Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Altendorf)
The contribution by Dr. Marcel Kypers, the future leader of the Biogeochemistry department and director of the institute gave an outlook to the new focal points that the department will have under his leadership.
Bo Barker Jørgensen was delighted at the model of the institute that was presented to him by the workshop leaders Georg Herz and Volker Meyer.
Research meets the administrative headquarters: Bo Barker Jørgensen, institute advisor Markus Fritz, and Rudolf Amann.
The farewell symposium took place in the lecture hall of the Max Planck Institute in Bremen.