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Boštjan Žekš, full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, was born on 26
June 1940. Besides being scientific adviser at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the
Jozef Stefan Institute and Provost of the University of Nova Gorica, he is professor of
biophysics at the Faculty of Medicine and professor of physics at the Faculty of Physics and
Mathematics at University of Ljubljana. He has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of
Sciences and Arts (SASA) since 1987 and was its President between 2002 and 2008.
Since 21 November, 2008 he is Minister without Portfolio Responsible for Slovenes Abroad.
He has been working in the area of theoretical physics and biophysics. As co-author, he
published in international scientific journals a number of resounding works related to:
structural phase transitions in crystals, ferroelectric crystals with hydrogen bonds, phase
transitions in liquid crystals, characteristics of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric liquid
crystals and the elastic properties of biological and model phospholipid membranes. Together
with his co-workers he contributed to a better understanding of static and dynamic properties
of ferroelectric crystals with hydrogen bonds; he also introduced a theoretical model of
ferroelectric and antiferroelectric liquid crystals and clarified physical causes for diverse
forms of red blood cells and the behaviour of red blood cells under different physical and
chemical conditions and under the influence of diverse forces. He is also the co-author of
monograph Soft Modes in Ferroelectrics and Antiferroelectrics published in 1974 by the
North Holland publishers in Amsterdam, which was subsequently revised and translated into
Russian and Chinese. Later, he co-authored with Igor Muševič and Robert Blinc, the
monograph: The Physics of Ferroelectric and Antiferroelectric Liquid Crystals, published by
World Scientific in the year 2000.
On numerous occasions he attended in the capacity of an invited lecturer, international and
European scientific conferences on ferroelectrics, liquid crystals and biophysics. In 1972-73
he had a fellowship of the Humboldt Foundation at the University of Frankfurt/M in FR
Germany, and in the periods 1973-75 and 1980 he was full professor at the University in
Recife, Brazil. In the more recent period he paid lengthy professional visits to the
departments of physics of the universities in Saarbrucken and Munich in Germany,
Colchester in Great Britain, in Amiens and Montpellier in France and in Ueda and Tokyo in
Japan.
He received the Boris Kidrič Fund Award (1980), the Kidrič Award (in 1988 together with
Adrijan Levstik) and the National Science and Research Award (in 1993 together with Saša
Svetina).
Bibliography:
 http://izumbib.izum.si/bibliografije/Y20090514093725-01068.html