We inform with deep regret that on June 4, 2019 in Moscow, before one month reached its 91st birthday (on July 6), Yuri Moiseevich Kagan passed away. The cause of death was cancer, from which he has been intensively treated lately. Yu. Kagan was an outstanding theoretical physicist, one of the oldest scientists of the Research Center of the Kurchatov Institute, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His scientific works made an invaluable contribution to the development of molecular physics, the theory of solids, quantum and classical kinetics, the theory of the interaction of nuclear radiation and charged particles. Yu. Kagan made a fundamental contribution to the theory of coherent interaction of radiation with matter, which stimulated extensive experimental studies using gamma-resonance spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Since the mid-60s of the last century, Yu. Kagan together with A. Afanasyev laid the theoretical foundations of a new direction related to the specificity of nuclear reactions in crystals. In particular, they predicted the effect of suppressing the inelastic channels of nuclear reactions and introduced the concept of a collective excited nuclear state. And in 1976, Yu. Kagan together with a experimental team of scientists from the Kurchatov Institute were awarded the State Prize. Currently, all the major synchrotron centers of the world have set up special Mössbauer stations for the study and use of coherent nuclear effects, which based on these works. For a long time Yu. Kagan was engaged for the theory of the Mössbauer spectra of a wide class of materials, which allowed explaining and predicting a number of new physical effects. This activity began with the prediction of the effect of stabilization of the hyperfine structure of the spectra of paramagnetic crystals by weak external magnetic fields. In particular, he showed that the small external field of about only 100 Oe can stabilize the hyperfine magnetic field of about a million Oe. Over the years, the outstanding physicist has managed not only to obtain brilliant scientific results, which have found wide international recognition, but also to educate a whole galaxy of followers of his noble cause. We, as well as all Russian Mossbauer community, express our deep condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Yu. Kagan. The bright memory of him will forever remain in our hearts.

Our good friend and colleague Göstar Klingelhöfer passed away suddenly and unexpected. 0n January 8, 2019. Coming just back from a travel to China, he was full of plans for new projects. Göstar was probable the best known Mössbauer spectroscopist. With his engagement in planetology science and the high success with the investigations on Mars, he is responsible that Mössbauer spectroscopy is nowadays known also outside of our community. His talks, which he gave on nearly every Mössbauer conference were always highlights. As father of MIMOS II he has opened new perspectives for out-of-laboratory measurements. With the take over of the Wissel company it was also guaranteed for many of us, who use Wissel products, that good Mössbauer electronics is still available in future. For his many contributions Göstar has got the IBAME Award. He was very active as IBAME member, e.g. as representative of Germany and member of the Scientific Award committee.

Prof. Moshe Paz-Pasternak passed away on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. He received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science (1967), and held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Illinois, Urbana, before becoming a staff member at the School of Physics and Astronomy of the Tel Aviv University (Senior Lecturer 1970, Associate Prof. 1976, Full Prof. 1983). Since 1976 he has held several visiting professorships in University of California, Santa Barbara; Catholic University Leuven; Los Alamos National Laboratory; University of California, Berkeley; Osaka University; Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart.

On Wednesday April 25,2018 Prof. Dr.habil. inż. Krzysztof Piotr Ruebenbauer passed away unexpectedly at the age of 70. Until last he was active in Mössbauer Spectroscopy. Only recently he became the first president of the new found Polish Society of Mössbauer Spectroscopy, which was a matter close of his heart. Krzysztof Piotr RUEBENBAUER was born on 29 August 1947 in Cracow, studied at the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy and became his PhD at the Jagiellonian University in 1975. He worked first at the Institute of Nuclear Physics (1976-89) and then as Professor of Physics at the Pedagogical University in Cracow. Early scientific activity of Krzysztof Ruebenbauer was concentrated on magnetically diluted rare earth Laves phase systems. A work on the highly sophisticated Mössbauer data processing software was started in late seventies. This work has been continued over many years resulting in the MOSGRAF package to process the Mössbauer spectra “from first principles”. He was the “driving force” in development of series of high-precision and fully remote Moessbauer spectrometers - MsAa-x branch.

Eddy De Grave (Feb 16, 1951 – Jan 24, 2018) obtained in 1973 his licentiate (master) degree in physics at the University of Ghent. From then on he started a scientific career at the former Laboratory of Magnetism as a Research Assistant at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (NFWO/FWO). In 1983 he became a Research Associate, in 1987 a Senior Research Associate and by 1991 he was Research Director. After the FWO research staff became part of the University, he became Senior Lecturer in 2000 and Professor in 2010. De Grave’s research started with the study of (Fe,Mg,Ti)O4 spinel compounds, using Mössbauer spectroscopy (MS) for the very first time in Ghent. He performed additional high-field MS experiments during a four month stay with Professor S.S. Hafner at the Philipps University in Marburg (Germany). The thorough study of these magnetic oxides led to his PhD degree in 1978. Meanwhile his interest also lay with Fe oxides and particularly with Fe oxihydroxides. In 1980 he stayed with a Fulbright/Hays Grant for a year at the North Caroline State University with Professor L.H. Bowen, where he performed research on Al-substituted hematite and goethite. This work did continue in Ghent and during several subsequent stays in the US. In the meantime De Grave showed an increasing interest in the characterization of minerals with MS. In particular, he did pioneering research on some new uranyl phosphates in collaboration with Professor R. Vochten (University of Antwerp). At a certain point, he was also involved in the characterization of the Fe oxide catalysts for the preparation of carbon nanotubes in cooperation with Ch. Laurent of the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. However, among the different kinds of material investigations, soil-related materials and minerals remained his favorite research topic during his whole career. His tremendous research resulted in about 250 publications of which more than 200 so-called A1 papers, and several chapters in multiple books. He attended more than 40 conferences where he was a welcome guest and gave lectures throughout the world. He also shared his extensive expertise with several PhD students, especially with some from South America (e.g. G.M. da Costa from Brazil). At last but not least, Eddy De Grave obtained a post PhD degree (Aggregation HO) in 1983 and became a Fellow of the American Mineralogical Society in 2006. During his career he was largely responsible for the collection of funds for the equipment of the MS laboratory. Eddy De Grave retired in October 2015. Continuing as a part-time voluntary researcher, he planned to move the Mössbauer spectrometers to the Geology building in order to carry on with his MS research in collaboration with Professor Van Ranst. Unfortunately, his declining health prevented him from doing so. Eddy De Grave passed away on January 24. With him disappears Mössbauer spectroscopy definitively in Ghent, but as a result of his numerous and valuable papers, his knowledge will remain with us.

The Mössbauer Spectrometry community has lost one of its founders. Pierre Imbert passed away on Tuesday January 30th 2018 following a stroke. In 1965, at the Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Saclay, Pierre Imbert founded a laboratory dedicated to the applications of the Mössbauer effect to basic problems in Solid State Physics (electronic structure and magnetism, dynamics of magnetic moments). He carried out a number of in-depth studies and, among his most significant results, may be mentioned the unveiling of the Kondo behaviour of Ytterbium impurities in gold, accomplished with his PhD student and friend Fernando Gonzalez-Jimenez (1941-2012), as well as the emission spectrometry experiments at very low temperature, resulting in a new « window » for the measurement of the dynamics of magnetic moments. Pierre Imbert was an enthusiastic researcher and of a convincing mentor. He was particularly modest always stressing the contribution of his collaborators to the work carried out together, and this along with his cheerfulness and good humour were salient features of his character. He has left a substantial scientific imprint and his passing is unanimously regretted.

At its meeting in Saint Petersburg on 06 September 2017, IBAME, the International Board on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect met a decision on the venue of the International Conference on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect in 2021 (ICAME 2021). The conference will take place in Braşov, Romania and will be organised by the National Institute of Materials Physics (NIMP), Bucharest-Magurele. The exact date of the event will be decided later.

Dr. Gopal K. Shenoy, the distinguished member of the international Mössbauer community and one of the founders of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne passed away on 29 November 2017. Our deepest sympathies go to Gopal’s family and colleagues. An appreciation of Gopal by Ercan Alp follows. Dr. Gopal K. Shenoy – An Appreciation Dr. Gopal K. Shenoy’s career Argonne National Laboratory started in 1967. Altogether he spent 43 years at the Laboratory. During this time, he had a major impact, first as a bench scientist in the Mössbauer Spectroscopy Laboratory, then as a group leader for synchrotron radiation research in the Materials Science Division, then as a founding father of the current X-ray Science Division. He played a leading role in formulating the need for an advanced synchrotron radiation source for the nation, and then in raising Argonne’s capacity to compete for this light source, culminating in bringing the Advanced Photon Source (APS) to Argonne.

It is a great pleasure to inform you that Ralf Röhlsberger unanimously was elected Secretary of IBAME. With this decision the executive board is complete and will start to work.

At its meeting in Hamburg on 17 September 2015, IBAME, the International Board on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect met a decision yesterday, 17 September on the venue of the International Conference on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect in 2019 (ICAME 2019). The conference will take place in Dalian, China and will be hosted and organised by the Mössbauer Effect Data Center at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in September 2019. The exact date of the event will be decided later.