Professor Witold Budryk (1891–1958)

Rector for the 1956–1958 term of office
Mine ventilation, underground firefighting, mining hydromechanics, deposits exploitation, orogenic movements, chemical technology

He was born in Białystok. He graduated from mining studies at the Saint Petersburg State Mining Institute, engineering studies at the Polytechnic School in Lviv and Warsaw University of Technology, as well as geology-mining studies at the Mining Academy in Krakow.

Since 1924, he had been an assistant and senior lecturer in the Department of Mining of the Mining Academy; after obtaining postdoctoral qualifications in 1930, he was associate professor and head of the Department of Mining and Mechanical Processing (1930–1945), organiser and dean of the Faculty of Mining (1936–1939 and 1945–1946), full professor (1937), and head of the Department of Aerology and Mining Hydromechanics (1945–1958). In 1928, he topped the list of Mining Academy doctors (the first doctor’s degree in technical sciences in the field of mining in Poland). In 1939, together with other Krakow professors, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany.

He was an employee of the Central Mining Institute in Katowice and head of the Strata Mechanics Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1952-1958). He established an original Polish school of mining engineers, called Budryk’s school. He chaired several scientific societies and associations.

Professor Budryk authored nearly 120 papers published in Polish, French, and German. They touched upon all fields of mining and mechanical processing. He created the foundations for crucial underground mining issues, such as safety conditions against geodynamic, gas, and water threats. He was a member of the Academy of Technical Sciences and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He was commemorated with a plaque placed in the Main Building; additionally, his name was given to the building housing the Faculty of Mining.