A tribute to Professor Jan Bergman

Abstract

Professor Jan Olof Einar Bergman (Jan Bergman) was born on the 30 th of April, 1941, in Spånga, Sweden, a small town later incorporated into its Eastern neighbor, Stockholm. Jan was the eldest of a family of two boys. His father was a stone-mason and his mother assisted her sister in a milliner's shop in the center of Stockholm. After grammar school in Spånga, Jan studied at the Royal Institute of Technology (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, commonly referred to as KTH), in Stockholm, graduating as Master of Engineering in 1964, specializing in Chemistry. Remaining in the same institution, he registered for the degree of PhD in 1965, though for the first year he was rarely in the Institute while he carried out part of his compulsory military service (two years -1965-1966) at the Swedish Arméns Skyddsingenjörsskola (Army Protective Engineering School), in Stockholm. Earlier (1960), Jan spent one year of basic military service in Östersund and has been an avid supporter of Östersund FC ever since, despite their recent disappointments.Already working in the KTH when Jan began his PhD studies, was Solveig Larsson who was to become Jan's lifetime assistant, both practically in the laboratory, as a supervisor of students at all levels, as an administrative Personal Assistant . . . and in July 1967, his wife. Their marriage produced three sons, Leif, Hans and Bengt, none of whom chose chemistry as a career, despite Jan's best efforts to encourage them in that direction; instead they chose computer-related paths. Finally, in 1971 Jan was awarded the degree of PhD for "Studies of Indole Derivatives", under the guidance of Professor Holger Erdtman -a topic that has continued to dominate much of Jan's subsequent research interests.