Attila Pethő

He began teaching at Kossuth Lajos University (KLTE) in 1974. He taught at the Department of Algebra and Number Theory until 1987, and then headed the Department of Computer Science as an associate professor between 1988 and 1992.

Between 1992 and 1997, he was the head of the Informatics Laboratory of the Debrecen University of Medicine (DOTE). He managed the construction of the DOTE subnet of the Debrecen Universitas IT network. He was the professional leader of the TEMPUS project, which prepared the substantive part of the DOTE integrated healthcare and management IT system by 1995, which has been in operation ever since. In the meantime, he obtained the titles of university doctor at the KLTE in 1976, candidate of mathematical sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1981, and doctor of mathematical sciences in 1992.

In 1994, he was appointed as a university professor at the KLTE, where he returned full-time in 1997. From 1998, he received a Széchenyi Professorial Scholarship. Between 2000-2003, he was the head of the Department of Computer Science, then the director of the Institute of Informatics for 1 year, and between 2004-2010, he was the dean of the Faculty of Informatics of the University of Debrecen (DE). Between 2009-2013, he was again the head of the Department of Computer Science, and between 2008-2015, he was the head of the Doctoral School of Informatics at DE.

In 2010, he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and in 2016, a full member. In the meantime (between 1976 and 2006), he accepted invitations from numerous Austrian, German, French and Japanese universities. Since 2002, he has been an honorary professor at the Graz University of Technology.

His research areas are number theory and Diophantine equations, and in computer science, cryptography and algorithmic data protection. He has published more than 170 papers on these topics. A very important activity of his was the organization of cryptography and data protection education in Debrecen.

He is a member of the editorial boards of Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen (1994-), Periodica Mathematica Hungarica (1998-2020, of which he was editor-in-chief between 2000-2007), Journal of Universal Computer Science (1995-2018), Acta Mathematica Hungarica (2010-), Uniform Distribution Theory (2013-) and Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Informatica.

His awards include: Géza Grünwald Prize (Bolyai János Mathematical Society, BJMT, 1978); Academic Prize (1992); Bolyai Farkas Board of Trustees Prize (2000); Albert Szent-Györgyi Prize (Minister of Education, 2005); Academic Publishing House Excellence Prize (2008); Tibor Szele Memorial Medal (BJMT, 2008).