Janez Peklenik

Academician Janez Peklenik was born in 1926. He was one of the most distinguished Slovenian scientists in the field of engineering.

In 1961 he was habilitated at TU Aachen. The following year, he was invited to the United States as a visiting associate professor at Carnegie-Melon University in Pittsburgh. This was followed in 1964 by his election as a full professor at the University of Birmingham in England. In that time, computer technology began to penetrate production systems and processes and revolutionize Taylor’s design of production mode. Peklenik was the first in the world to establish a chair for machining systems. At the same time, he was elected as a full professor at the University of Illinois, USA.

Janez Peklenik achieved the most visible successes in real-time identification and adaptive control of machining processes and systems, description and characterization of stochastic properties of technical surfaces and surface interfaces.

Academician Peklenik has received numerous international and domestic awards for his scientific achievements. In addition to the CIRP medal, he also received the American FW Taylor Medal, which he was awarded in 1982. Among other things, he received the highest prize for scientific achievements in Slovenia – Kidrič Prize (1975), the Georg Schlesinger Prize in Berlin (1988), the National Lifetime Achievement Award of the Republic of Slovenia (1996) and was named the Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia (1992). He was an honorary professor at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China, the University of Birmingham in England, and an emeritus professor at the University of Ljubljana.

In addition, Janez Peklenik was a full member of SAZU, an honorary member of the CIRP International Academy, a full member of the European Academy, the Russian Academy of Engineering, and the founder and honorary president of the Slovenian Academy of Engineering