Biography of Professor Kazimierz Demel

Professor Kazimierz Demel was born on March 9, 1889 in Zawodzie near Katowice. He began his scientific career as a student at the universities in Lwów and Geneva; the Jagiellonian University in Cracow later recognized the diploma he had earned there. In 1913 he began working at the Warsaw Scientific Society. They sent him to Villefranche Sur Mer and Murmansk for additional scientific training, and it was at this time that he began specializing in marine biology and ecology. In 1916, he was forced to abandon his academic pursuits to enlist first in the Czarist and then the Polish armies. He took part in the Third Silesian Uprising. Following demobilization, he worked at a biological station on Lake Wigry for a short period.

Professor Demel's long-term involvement with the Baltic Sea began in 1923 at the Marine Laboratory and, following its closure, at the Marine Station in Hel, where he held both scientific and administrative positions. In 1938 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis.

Kazimierz Demel 1889 - 1978
 

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Professor Demel lived in Warsaw where he was engaged in clandestine teaching. After the war, in 1945, he returned to Gdynia and became deputy director of the reopened Marine Fishery Laboratory. When this institution merged with the SFI, Professor Demel became the head of the Department of Oceanography and deputy director for scientific matters.

In 1950 he successfully defended his post-doctoral dissertation at the Jagiellonian University, and he was awarded a full professorship in 1957.

In addition to his scientific work at the SFI, from 1946 to 1960 Professor Demel lectured at the Marine Fishery School in Gdynia, the Warsaw Agricultural University, the Marine Trade Academy in Sopot, and the Fishery Department at the Agricultural Academy in Olsztyn where he was also the director of the Oceanography and Marine Biology Faculty. He was also the cofounder of university courses in marine biology held in Hel and then in Gdynia. For many years he served as an expert on the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Retirement in 1960 did not mean the end of his scientific work; Professor Demel remained active until his final days.

The fruit of Professor Demel's career, some 250 popular and scientific publications, embody extensive knowledge of the sea and its resources. In recognition of his contribution to this field of study, the Agricultural Academy in Olsztyn conferred Professor Demel with an honorary doctorate in 1960. This was but one of the many decorations, honors and awards which he received in his lifetime.