In memoriam Bengt Lund-Jensen
Professor emeritus Bengt Lund-Jensen passed away on December 21st 2023, at the age of 69. Bengt was a prominent figure at KTH for many years and held several important posts, including Head of the Physics Department, 2006-2012.
Bengt received his Master’s degree from KTH in 1980. After a military service, he undertook his PhD research at Uppsala University between 1983 and 1989, where he established a life-long collaboration with CERN - The European Laboratory for Particle Physics. After several postdoc years at the Manne Siegbhan Institute at Frescati, Bengt was recruited to KTH in 1993, became associate professor in 1997 and professor in 2005. From 2005, until his retirement in 2022, he was head of the Particle and Astroparticle Physics research Division at the Physics Department.
Bengt’s research at KTH centered around the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. He participated in the construction of the Liquid Argon calorimeter (LAr), a collaborative effort between institutes from many universities. Notably, KTH became a major construction site for part of the LAr detector under Bengt’s leadership. Bengt was the elected Institute Board chair for LAr between 2006-2012. Starting around 2017, Bengt was one of the driving forces behind the design of a new timing detector for ATLAS, which is currently under construction. Again, Bengt was elected Institute Board chair between 2020-2022 - the first to hold the position for the newly CERN-approved detector. Through-out his long career on ATLAS, Bengt’s goal was to find supersymmetric particles, which could explain the nature of dark matter in the universe. The search continues!
Besides these comprehensive research activities, Bengt was a dedicated teacher who taught a broad spectrum of courses at Bachelor and Master’s level. He was always available to discuss with students and could often be heard in the corridor relating stories from his research adventures. Those of you who have attended School parties during the years, will also know that he was also a passionate and highly accomplished dancer.
Bengt will be sorely missed. We held him in high regard as an industrious and knowledgeable colleague who was dedicated to his work. Bengt cared about those around him, and we valued his friendship and sense of humour, even during times of adversity. His genuine passion for solving problems was contagious, and his warmth and enthusiasm live on in many whom he mentored.
Mark Pearce, Jonas Strandberg, Christian Ohm