Hungarian Scientists in the United States

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian scientists came to the United States in several waves over the last hundred years. Many of them became world-famous Nobel Prize winners in the twentieth century, others have been working in the United States for decades, while many came more recently. The combination of the knowledge provided by the Hungarian education system and the conditions offered by the US research and scientific community is a special characteristic of most of these scientists. Last year I started organizing conferences dedicated to the scientific heritage of the great Hungarian minds, but with a future-oriented perspective. We want to see what the future holds for science. Our starting point was John von Neumann, who had an immense impact on various fields such as computer science/artificial intelligence, mathematics, physics, chemistry, economics and even meteorology and climate change. But other Martians of the last century have also given a lot to the world, and the new generation of young scientists is also on the rise. In November 2023, probably the largest multidisciplinary conference ever dedicated to Hungarian science was held at New York University. In April this year, Philadelphia became the venue for the next major scientific event, a city where Katalin Kariko spent several decades to achieve her outstanding scientific results, that earned her the Nobel Prize. This year is also memorable because two outstanding scientists, Gyorgy Olah and John Harasnyi, received the Nobel Prize exactly 30 years ago. In addition, 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of Erno Rubik's famous cube, which has enchanted hundreds of millions of people over the past decades. These events and anniversaries give us further opportunities to strengthen cooperation between Hungarian and American scientists and educators through innovative ideas and events.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tamas Novak has been an S&T diplomat at the Consulate General of Hungary in New York since 2018. Prior to his current position, he worked at the Budapest Business School, where he was the Chair of International Business and held various leadership positions. In addition to his teaching duties, he was a research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 2013-2014, he spent a year at SAIS in Washington DC. as a research fellow of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation. Tamas holds an MSc in Economics and a PhD in International Relations from Corvinus University in Budapest.