Szczepan Pieniążek

Szczepan Aleksander Pieniążek (1913 to 2008) was a Polish pomologist, professor of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and vice-president of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a pioneer in Polish horticulture after World War II. After a master's degree in biology at the University of Warsaw in 1938 he studied at Cornell University, defended a doctoral dissertation on the transpiration of apples in cold storage in 1942 and taught at Rhode Island State College until 1946. Back in Poland he headed the Department of Horticulture at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, was dean of the Faculty of Horticulture in 1965 and 1966, and from 1951 was the first director of the Institute of Pomology in Skierniewice, holding the post until 1984. In 1947 he began a Polish-American agricultural exchange with the Church of the Brethren that sent over 1,300 people, mainly farmers, on internships in the USA by 1989. His research covered pomology, plant physiology and the conservation of orchards, and he published over one hundred works.