SASA Corresponding Member Antun Balaz passed away

It is with great regret that the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts announces the passing of SASA Corresponding Member Antun Balaz, who passed away at the age of 53 on 4 July 2025 in Belgrade. Born in Zrenjanin on 27 December 1973 , he was one of the foremost experts in the fields of condensed matter physics, non-linear dynamics and computational physics.

In 1997, he graduated from the Department of Theoretical and Experimental Physics at the Faculty of Physics, the University of Belgrade with an average grade of 9.93. He also obtained his Master’s Degree from the same institution in 2004, and defended his doctoral thesis titled ‘Speeding up the Convergence of Path Integrals’ in 2008.

He is a recipient of Prof. Dr Ljubomir Cirkovic Award  for the best undergraduate and master’s thesis in physics, as well as the Annual Award of the Institute of Physics Belgrade for the best master’s thesis in 2005. He received professional training and spent study visits at the Freie Universität Berlin, The University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, University of Potsdam, The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst/Germany and the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

During his postgraduate studies (while studying for his Master’s Degree), he started his work as a Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia scholarship recipient at the Institute of Physics Belgrade, where he became permanently employed in 2002. It is here that he held all scientific positions, having been appointed a senior research fellow in 2010, and a research professor in 2015. In the same year, he took on the duties of the deputy director of the Institute of Physics Belgrade.

In the period between 2002 and 2005, he worked as a part-time teaching assistant for courses Quantum Field Theory, Quantum Electrodynamics and Theory of Elementary Particles at the Faculty of Physics Belgrade. He also held the position of an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sciences in Novi Sad for courses Quantum Field Theory and Numerical Methods in Condensed Matter Physics. In 2015, he became a lecturer of the newly formed doctoral courses titled Quantum Fluids and Monte Carlo Simulations in Physics at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Belgrade. Starting with 2022, he took on the course Quantum Mechanics of Complex Systems at the Department of Quantum, Mathematical and Nano Physics.

He delivered multiple lectures and organized numerous international schools of physics (ICTP in Berlin). From 2013 to 2015, he was a member of the Multidisciplinary Studies Council at the University of Belgrade, while from 2017, he was a member of the Doctoral Programme Council at the Faculty of Physics, Belgrade.

He greatly contributed to the concept and content writing of the best evaluated research project ON171017 ‘Modeling and Numerical Simulations of Many-Body  Systems’ in the Ministry of Education and Scientific Technology’s competition in all sciencies in 2010. He was this project’s leader between 2015 and 2019. He was Serbia’s team leader in a number of projects within EU programmes FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the head of multiple bilateral physics projects with Germany and Austria. A. Balaz participated in the establishment of the Scientific Computing Laboratory in 2004, which later became the National Centre of Excellence for the Study of Complex Systems at the Institute of Physics Belgrade. He was its head from 2015.

Numerous expert associations elected him as his member, some of which are as follows: the Optical Society of Serbia, (member since 2011)
European Physical Society (EPS), (member since 2011) and the German Physical Society, (member since 2010).

From 2017, he was a member of the Scientific Committee for Physics within the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. From 2022, he served as the Chair of the Committee. In 2010, he was elected a  member of the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Observatory Belgrade, while from 2014 to 2018, he chaired this Board. Along with these positions, from 2021, he held the membership of the Management Board of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and SASA Working Group for PhD Studies Reform from 2023.

He was elected for a SASA corresponding member of the SASA Department of Mathematics, Physics and Geosciences on 7 November 2024. He co-chaired two conferences held at the SASA: Symposium of Condensed Matter Physics in 2015 and the Eleventh International Conference of the Balkan Union of Physicists in 2022.

Early in his career, his research primarily focused on the application of effective actions in the path integral formalism in quantum field theory. In 2008, he branched out his research into ultra-cold quantum gases thus launching this research path in Serbia. With this research, he managed to establish scientific cooperation with several research groups from Germany, Austria, Romania, Brazil and India. He played a major role in the development of computational physics and numerical simulations in Serbia.

His bibliography includes over 60 papers published in international journals and more than 60 lectures delivered at international conferences. He gave numerous invited lectures at universities and institutes in Germany, Italy, USA, Spain, Slovenia, Romania, etc. According to the Web of Science base, his papers have been cited 1313 times, while his Hirsch index amounts to 22. Together with Dr Dusko Latas and Dr Nenad Vukmirovic, he authored physics textbooks and accompanying workbooks for experimental practices for the sixth and seven grade. He also contributed to various chapters in notable scientific monographs.

He was instrumental in science and education development in Serbia and international affirmation of domestic science. His complete dedication to the advancement of science in Serbia, particularly at the Institute of Physics Belgrade made a major impact on the education of numerous young scientists.

In addition to the above-mentioned accolades, he received the Annual Award of the Institute of Physics Belgrade for research paper (2014) and the Annual Award of the Institute of Physics Belgrade for financial contribution obtained through international project funds (2012, 2013).

His premature passing represents a great loss for the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and overall Serbian society and science.