On April 30 this year, the MIT News reported that MIT Professor Emeritus of Chemical and Fuel Engineering János Miklós Beér had been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic.  The award was recommended by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Power Industries and was presented on March 17. The citation mentioned Professor Beér’s support of Hungarian higher education and research, among his other lifelong work.

Through the Monday Night Mail, the IFRF would like to congratulate Professor Beer for this notable achievement.  Professor Beer has been a most significant participant and supporter of both IFRF and British Flame throughout his distinguished career and served as IFRF Research Station Head from 1960-1963, leading the “Fifth Team” of resident investigators into a period identified in ‘The Spirit of IJmuiden’ as  the “Decade of combustion aerodynamics”.  In 1963 Professor Beer left for the Penn State University where he became a Professor of Fuel Science. 

A brief visit to the home page of the Encyclopaedia of the Earth reveals that Professor Beer’s awards “include the U.S. Department of Energy’s Homer Lowry Award (2003)….(which) recognizes the substantial and ongoing contributions Dr. Beer has made to combustion science, and is the highest honor given by the Department of Energy for contributions in fossil energy science and technology. Other awards include the George Westinghouse Gold Medal of ASME International (2001), and the Energy Systems Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (1998).”

The history of the IFRF is traced in Professor Roman Weber’s authoritative text ‘The Spirit of IJmuiden’.  Copies of the book can be requested from tracey.biller@ifrf.net