Professor Ivars Knets 1938 - 2019
Ivars Knets was a world ranking biomechanical and polymer engineer who through a distinguished international career became Professor, Director of Biomechanics Research and Rector of Riga Technical University (RTU), Latvia. He graduated from RTU in Civil Engineering in 1961, completed his PhD in 1965 and was awarded a DSc from the Latvian Academy of Sciences in 1977. He became Professor at RTU in 1978 and was Director of the Biomaterials and Biomechanics Laboratory from 1994 until his retirement in 2011. His contribution to the mechanics of biological tissue, biomaterials, testing of tissue structures and the behaviour of hard biological tissue were world leading and can be found in in over 200 publications and 3 books on this subject matter. He was an excellent communicator and spoke Latvian, English, Russia and German and as such was invited to present his research at major International meetings such at World Congress of Biomechanics, European Society of Biomechanics and the CMBBE symposia series as well as being a sought-after Editorial Board member of various International Journals.
Ivars appetite for knowledge lead him to many renowned research laboratories around the world. He became a Timoshenko Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, a postdoctoral scholar at Yale, Brown University and UCLA in the USA as well as a visiting scholar at Udine and Monte San Savino, Italy. In 1990 Ivars visited the UK as a British Council Scholar which was when we first crossed paths in a relationship that was to last over 25 years. I had just started research in biomechanics and Ivars was a mine of information since he had been the founder of RTU Biomechanics School as well as laying the foundations for the development of educational science in Latvia. Within a few years we had become partners in various research projects including major European TEMPUS projects on education in biomechanics and engineering science. It was around this time that this journal was founded and Ivars become one of the first members of the Editorial Board and served from 1994 until 2010. Here I found him to be a most professional and competent scientist as well as an excellent organiser and administrator. He was an outstanding supporter of scientific development at RTU and this was indeed recognised when he was appointed Rector in 1999, a post he held for 11 years. His Honours and awards are numerous including the Gold Medal of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and also Vice President of the Latvian Olympic Committee (Ivars was a basketball player). However, his contribution and ability to communicate and assist in the development of the careers of young scientists and engineers and to provide them with a platform for international collaboration is without doubt an outstanding contribution over his lifetime.
He attended many the International Symposium series of CMBBE. Here he was always invited to Chair the opening session of the Symposium since he had a special knack of controlling the time of the presentations. It was a simple five-minute warning to end the talk and after that the speaker would be kindly forced to leave the podium. This first session always finished on time and was used as a model for the rest of the Symposium Chairs and is something that I fondly remember him for.
Ivars Knets contribution to research, his management skills and his service to Riga Technical University are without doubt of the highest calibre and will influence many in the coming years. Ivars passed away on 1st March 2019 and will be greatly missed by his family and friends as well as all those who knew him and worked with him.
Editor in Chief Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomechanical Engineering
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