Lodewijk Woltjer (26 April 1930 - 25 August 2019)
© 2019 EPFL
It is with profound sadness that I relay the news that Lodewijk Woltjer, founding President of the European Astronomical Society, former Director General of the European Southern Observatory and father of the VLT, passed away in Geneva on Sunday August 25, 2019 at the age of 89. Lodewijk Woltjer was a giant figure in European Astronomy. His scientific legacy benefits us all and he will be greatly missed.
Lo Woltjer's astronomical life was extremely rich with numerous seminal research activities and political contributions. He studied at Leiden University under Jan Oort and earned a PhD in astronomy in 1957. After post-doctoral research positions in Yerkes Observatory & at Princeton, he was appointed as a professor of theoretical astrophysics and plasma physics at the University of Leiden. From 1964 to 1974 he held the post of Rutherford Professor of Astronomy and Chair of the Astronomy Department at Columbia University in New York.
He was Director General of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) from 1975 to 1987, where he was responsible for the approval of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) project. He was awarded the Karl Schwarzschild Medal in 1987. He was the founding President of the European Astronomical Society serving in that role from 1990 - 1993. He went on to become President of the International Astronomical Union from 1994-1997. Lo Woltjer will be remembered for his kindness, his outstandingly bright intellect, his stylish attire and his dignity. The European astronomical community, for which he has contributed so much, and all his friends, will miss deeply his immense scientific, cultural, and musical knowledge.