Keve Kiss

Expertise: Biology
Expedition Role: Taxonomy
Affiliation: Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Who I Am and What I Do?

I am Keve T. Kiss, senior scientist of the Hungarian Danube Research Station of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I am the head of our institution. My profession is hydrobiology, phycology (algological investigation of large rivers and lakes) – see more detail in CV.

Career Journey

From 1962-67, I was a student in the L. Kossuth University (Debrecen), as well as on the faculty of biology, hydrobiology work experience. In 1973 I became a doctor in botany - hydrobiology (equivalent to MSc). In 1993 I became an associate professor, and in 1997: Dr. at Habil. University. In 1998 I became a Professor at the same University. In 1998 I became the Dr. of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Currently, I am a senior scientist, hydrobiologist, and algologist at the Hungarian Danube Research Station of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Growing up

I was born Dec 21, 1943, in Sepsiszentgyörgy in Hungary.

What made you study science?

When I was a few years old, I was dreaming of becoming a biologist and zoologist. There is a long tradition in my family of being scientists. My grandfather was a famous protozoologist, well known in all over the world (his son also zoologist, my mother teacher of biology – geography, my sister biologist, my little son is student on biological faculty). Unfortunately my grandfather died when I was only 6 years old. When my mother came back from the funeral, like a symbol, she bought me a butterfly-net. First I wanted to be specialist of butterflies, later an ichtiologist, and then an ornitologist – but never a botanist or phycologist. When I started to work at the hydrobiological laboratory of Debrecen Waterworks, I started to investigate the zooplankton of the River Tisza, then step by step the phytoplankton, and suddenly I realized that algae are exciting organisms in the water. So I didn’t notice when, but I was falling love with algae and now I am phycologist.

Personal

I very much like my work. It is like my hobby, I mean taking algal samples along a large river like River Danube from the source at the Black Forest in Germany to the mouth at the Black Sea: it is fantastic. The algal flora of the River Danube is very rich in species (more than one thousand living there), so if I look a sample in the microscope I can discover a wonderful world, like a real microcosms. I am a specialist of centric diatoms, one of the most abundant algal groups in the eutroficated large rivers. Studying them in electron microscope it is very beautiful. The silica frustule of centrics is like a nice, fully decorated round birthday-cake. I have to do many administrative duties, which is tedious, but that’s life, and I have to do it as the head of my institution.

Family, hobbies, interests, etc.

I am divorced. I have three sons (Peter – 35 years, Zoltan – 33 , Aaron - 20), and 3 granddaughters. My hobby is gardening and carpentering. My interests: I enjoy classical music, the art of painting, sculpture and voyage.

Advice

As I wrote earlier I wanted to be scientist since my childhood. My decision was so strong, that I never could imagine anything else. I learned well in schools and at the university. I read many-many books about the nature, and biology and I knew, I should develop my knowledge continuously during all my life. It is very important to know (to speak) foreign languages. I am Hungarian; our language is quite different from all others. First I learned in French in secondary school, and started to learn English only when I was about 35. It was too late in many respect, my knowledge is relatively poor from this reason. So I propose for native English speaking people, who want to work as scientist to learn German, or French, or Spanish, it will be useful for them. Also my advice is to read books, journals from the old continent (from Europe) and from all over the world. Working as scientist it is a hard work. To discover something new and interesting it is the result of a long and hard work, but to know you can build (may be) only with a small brick the beautiful building of the SCIENCE, it is worth your trouble.