Prof Dr Dr h.c. Diethard Pallaschke
1940–2020
With deep sadness and sympathy we inform you that our former Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Diethard Pallaschke passed away on 8 July 2020.
Professor Pallaschke was born in Friedland in 1940. He started his undergraduate studies at the University of Göttingen and continued at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1968.
After spending some time at the University of Bonn as an Assistant Professor, he was appointed an Associate Professor at the University of Technology in Darmstadt and later on at the University of Münster. In 1977, Diethard Pallaschke became a Full Professor of Applied Mathematics in Bonn. He moved to the University of Karlsruhe in 1981, where he got a Full Professorship of Operations Research and Mathematical Economics. Until 2008, he was there the Director of the Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Economics. During that time he has formed many generations of students, some of them have made later on a scientific career at universities in Germany and abroad. From October 2008, he has been a Professor Emeritus at the University of Karlsruhe.
The mathematical works of Diethard Pallaschke, whose original ideas have influenced various fields in mathematics such as functional analysis, convex analysis, game theory, geometry and, last but not least, optimization, are quoted by many authors. Diethard Pallaschke’s originality stems from his ability to put and answer penetrating questions, and so many co-workers have benefited from his deep mathematical thinking.
Professor Pallaschke has written two excellent books together with his colleagues and friends Stefan Rolewicz and Ryszard Urbanski. He is also the author of more than 100 refereed papers published in international journals.
Apart from conducting joint academic research, as part of the cooperation, in the years 1977–2008, he supported the academic development of young Polish mathematicians who benefited significantly from his work. Therefore, the University of Zielona Góra conferred him the honorary degree of Doctor Honoris Causa in 2010.
Furthermore, Diethard Pallaschke was an Associate Editor of many international journals: Applicationes Mathematicae, Discussiones Mathematicae-Differential Inclusions, Control and Optimization, Journal of Convex Analysis, Journal of Dynamical and Control Systems and our journal Optimization, for which he worked very hard and with a lot of enthusiasm as Editor-in-Chief over nine years.
Taylor & Francis offers free access to papers by Diethard Pallaschke in our journal Optimization.
Prof. Diethard Pallaschke was an exceptional human being, an outstanding mathematician, a very good colleague and a wonderful friend. We will miss him sorely.