My background

I was born in Opava, which is now in the Czech Republic, although it was then Czechoslovakia. There I also later graduated from the high school. I got my undergraduate education at Comenius University in Bratislava (now Slovakia, but it used to be Czechoslovakia then) between 1973 and 1978. Later I got my CSc. Degree (Ph.D. equivalent) there under the supervision of Štefan Znám. In 1994 I received my Ph.D. at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, under the supervision of Alexander Rosa.

Before I joined UMD, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, at the University of Vermont. I spent three wonderful semesters there. Before then I was an Associate and later Full Professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Technical University Ostrava in the Czech Republic. When I was in the Czech Republic, I had also a part time appointment with the Institute of Computer Science at Silesian University in Opava, where I permanently live (that means four months every year).

My mathematical interests

I am interested mostly in graph theory and design theory. In particular, I have been recently mostly working in graph decompositions and factorizations and graph designs. You can see my list of publications and preprints, if you want. I have also used graph factorizations in some interesting applications, namely tournament scheduling. I have scheduled with my friend Mariusz Meszka the Czech Gambrinus Soccer League, the Czech National Hockey League, the Czech National Basketball League, and also some competitions of the NSIC, where UMD Bulldogs used to compete until recently and will compete again soon. Last year I prepared schedules for NCC football (where the Bulldogs played).

When I was at UVM, we have also scheduled with my friend Jeff Dinitz the now defunct football league, the XFL. Here is our photo with one of our schedules, when we believed it was the final one (since then we have had about ten more "final ones"). Too bad the league folded after one year, they really liked our schedule and were planning on working with us again. At least we got to go to the championship game in Los Angeles and we got a lot of press for doing the schedule. Here is a photo of me and Jeff in the LA Coliseum at the championship “Million Dollar Game”. There was also an article about us and the schedule in New York Times.

And here is another article in Burlington Free Press. I like it very much, because we are called the Brainy Professors there!! And one more article in Sport (a Czech newspaper), which I like even more, because they say that I am most likely a genius!

My private life and other interests

I have a wife Anna, and two sons, Peter (20) and Fabian (18). Although it looks like my family will not move permanently to Duluth quite yet, they come often to visit me. We all prefer to live in both worlds, Old and New, rather than choosing just one of them. So my wife and boys are joining me here from time to time and I am commuting, spending summers and winter breaks with them in Europe. Fabian recently went to Proctor High School while Peter attended some classes here at UMD. And with Anna we had our first canoeing experience in Boundary Waters and also a nice bicycling trip along Mesabi Trail.

I like cross-country skiing, hiking, bicycling, and camping, preferably with my family, and also haywiring (a.k.a. duct-taping).