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Prof. Dr. Ing. Viliam Pichler
Prof. Dr. Ing. Viliam Pichler was born 14. 7. 1968 in Zvolen. He completed grammar school (Gymnasium) in Zvolen. After graduation from the Faculty of Forestry, University of Forestry and Wood Processing Industry in Zvolen, as a forestry engineer (Ing.) in September 1991, he enrolled in the doctoral study program “Forest Ecology”. He earned his PhD. (Dr.) from his alma mater by defending his dissertation "Changes in soil moisture and moisture potential after reduction of beech stand density". During his graduate studies, he spent one year on an internship at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (Prof. Dr. Hannes Fluehler’s soil physics team), ETH Zurich. Simultaneously, he graduated in environmental science from the European Institute of Postgraduate Education at TU in Dresden In 1995. He then went on with a two-year postdoctoral stay at the University of California, Riverside upon invitation by Prof. Dr. W. A. Jury.
Prior and after his appointment as Associate Professor in the field of Forest Ecology in 2003, Dr. Pichler pursued his academic career by teaching Soil science, Introduction to Ecology, Forest Ecology, Ecopedology, Forest Environmental Science, Forest Ecosystems Monitoring and Tourism in Forest Environment at the Faculty of Forestry TUZVO. In June 2013, after successfully passing the inauguration proceedings at the Czech University of Life Sciencies in Prague, Czech Republic, and upon its recommendation, he was appointed professor of ecology by the president of the Czech Republic.
He also lectured at universities in the USA, Great Britain, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Poland and several other countries. He was involved in the preparation and accreditation of new study programs (e.g. Forest Ecology). He was elected a member of the National Committee for the UNESCO MAB program in 2000. In 2002, he was awarded premium from the Literary Fund for Scientific and Scholarly Literature as co-editor of "Forests of Slovakia – diversity and protection" together with Prof. Dr. E. Bublinec. Thereafter he was appointed expert and high representative of the Ministry of Environment in the project of the nomination of the primeval forests of Slovakia and the Carpathians for their inscription on the World Heritage List. He served as national and UNESCO/IUCN expert during pre-evaluation missions in the Slovak Republic, Ukraine and the Russian Federation (Putorana Plateau), as well as during World Heritage Committee meetings (Christchurch, New Zealand), where Beech Primeval Forests of the Carpathians were successfully inscribed. For this achievement, he was awarded the Prize of the Slovak Minister of Environment (2008).
Prof. Dr. Viliam Pichler was the principal investigator or faculty coordinator of numerous projects awarded by domestic (Research and Development Agency, Scientific and Grant Agency of Ministry of Education and the Slovak Academy of Sciences), e.g. Joint National Centre for Primeval Forest Research of the Temperate zone Forests. Presently, he is responsible for multiple activities within the framework of two centres of excellence (Adaptive Forest Ecosystems I, II) implemented by the Faculty of Forest Sciences, Technical University in Zvolen. He acted as a representative of the Slovak Republic or the institutional representative in COST actions, 6 FP EU projects and in projects focused on the transfer of scientific knowledge and E-learning. He acted as a member of the Board of Directors of the Slovak Research and Development Agency in the period 2005–2009. He took part in the development of scientific policies of the Slovak Republic on this platform, in particular in the area of project proposals peer-review. He worked as a Vice-Dean for foreign relations of the Faculty of Forestry Sciences (Technical University in Zvolen) in 2003–2011). In March 2012, he was elected by the academic senate and appointed Dean of the Faculty of Forestry Sciences by the Rector of the Technical University in Zvolen.
Prof. Dr. Ing. V. Pichler authored or co-authored approx. 110 scientific publications or chapters in other monographs, issued by foreign Publishers (Springer, Taylor & Francis), 19 CC publications, 18 scientific papers in other scientific journals, of which 9 in international journals. He is member of the three commissions for doctoral study programmes and tutored three domestic and one foreign PhD. student. Prof. Dr. Viliam Pichler speaks fluent English, German and he has working knowledge of Russian and street-fighting knowledge of the Arabic languages. He is married to Dr. Magdaléna Pichlerová. Together, they have one daughter Eva Magdaléna.