Prof. Mikhail D. Mikhailov

On March 8, 2024, we lost one of the biggest names in Engineering Sciences. At 90 years of age, completed on January 27th, Prof. Mikhail Dimitrov Mikhailov, or just Misho to those closest to him, passed away at his residence in Sofia, Bulgaria. I met Prof. Mikhailov during my doctorate, at North Carolina State University, USA, in 1984, where he spent a semester as Visiting Professor at the invitation of Prof. M. Necati Ozisik. I worked under his guidance during this period and a mutual admiration and friendship quickly developed that will be eternal. At the time he was Head of the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Sofia, one of the main schools of engineering and related areas in Eastern Europe, where he obtained his specialization in Heat Transfer. In 1989 I had the opportunity to visit him in Sofia and he in turn visited us in Brazil for four months in 1990. When I extended the invitation for him to join us at UFRJ as a visiting professor, he accepted, he just had to wait for his retirement. So, in 1995, Prof. Mikhailov began his academic career in Brazil, having worked at three institutions, COPPE-UFRJ (1995–2009), National Nuclear Energy Commission - CNEN (2009-2010) and National Metrology Institute - INMETRO (2011-2014). In addition to having worked as a Professor or Visiting Researcher at these institutions, he interacted with researchers at several other institutions, such as UFC, UFPA, UFPB, UFRGS, UFF, just to mention a few. He disseminated among us his extensive knowledge in Applied Mathematics and his passion for Symbolic Computation, being a great stimulator of the creation of the Mathematica Technical Center at COPPE/UFRJ in 2000. During this period we also founded the magazine Hybrid Methods in Engineering, in which he served as co-Editor-in-Chief, and we published the book Heat Conduction: Lumped Analysis, Integral Transforms, Symbolic Computations, in addition to participating in several projects, thesis supervisions, and scientific articles.

Always accompanied by his beloved wife Zeza, also a retired professor at Sofia Technical University, Misho was always present at ABCM's main events. With Zeza's passing in 2012, his life in Brazil became very lonely, and worried about his health at the age of 80, he returned to Bulgaria in early 2014, to be closer to his son and daughter and grandchildren. I had the opportunity to visit him in Sofia in 2018, which was the last time we met in person. On that occasion we made plans for new meetings, on shorter trips that were viable for him, but unfortunately the plans did not materialize and email contacts became a little more spaced out. My last email, sent two days before his departure, was never responded to. I also did not have the chance to tell him that my proposal for a Special Issue in his honour had been accepted in the Int. Journal of Numerical Methods in Heat and Fluid Flow, where he served on the Editorial Board for many years since its creation.

Despite his austere appearance, Misho was very sociable and his smile was tender and sincere. A passionate about Brazil and our neighborhood, a privileged mind, a humanist intellectual, brilliant mathematician, inventive programmer and a great storyteller. The world, our country, his family and all of us who experienced the happiness of meeting him and receiving a little of what he had to offer, have lost a great man.

Thank you Misho!

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Prof. Renato Machado Cotta

Mechanical Engineering - Polytechnic School and COPPE

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro