Pavel Jungwirth

Pavel Jungwirth (20 May 1966 – 23 July 2026) was a Czech physical chemist. From 2004 until his death in 2026, he was the head of the Senior Research Group at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He was also a professor in the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University from 2000 and a senior editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry from 2009-2023. He and his colleagues have also discovered a way to slow down this reaction, which they used to determine the source of a blue flash that is briefly produced during the reaction.

Jungwirth was a coordinator of an international science competition Dream Chemistry Award, and appeared on the Academy of Sciences podcast.

Jungwirth died by suicide on 23 July 2026, at the age of 60.