Congratulations to our colleague Jan Pěnčík on the successful completion of his professorship! On December 12, 2023, he received his appointment decree from the President of the Czech Republic and the Minister of Education Mikulas Bek at a ceremonial meeting. 

Jan Pěnčík's scientific activities focus on the use of traditional as well as new modern materials or recycled materials emphasizing Green Deal and circular economy for the design of load-bearing structures of buildings. With his team at the Institute of Civil Engineering, he addresses the issue of 3D printing from precast concrete mixtures in internal and external projects and in collaboration with the AdMaS Centre and its Robotics and 3D Printing Laboratory. It also deals with modelling and analysis of building structures using the finite element method with the use of ANSYS and ATENA software, using methods of experimental testing of building structures or their details to verify their designs and comparison with numerical analyses and optimization of building structures. He has published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and professional periodicals and holds several European and Czech patents and utility models. One European patent is actively used in practice. He is also a successful researcher or co-investigator of projects of the faculty and university as well as state institutions, such as the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic or the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Until 2021, he was an expert in the field of construction, residential construction, industrial construction, and miscellaneous construction sectors. He is a recipient of the Josef Hlávka Foundation's Josef, Maria and Zdenka Hlávka Endowment Award and the Sir Frank Lampl Foundation Award. He has previously served on the faculty and university boards.  

Professor Pěnčík is also a popular educator. He is actively involved in teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Department of Civil Engineering, and is a supervisor and specialist supervisor of students in doctoral programmes. He is the supervisor of 89 successfully defended bachelor theses, 35 master theses and 2 dissertations. He applies modern pedagogical methods in his teaching, for example, he regularly organizes knowledge competitions for his students on his instagram account. 

Promoting entrepreneurship among BUT students and developing the BUT entrepreneurial ecosystem is another area that Jan Pěnčík deals with. He leads the organizing team of the BUT Student Entrepreneurship Prize and is a researcher of the innovative BUT contriBUTe entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In his personal life, he devotes himself to his family and his hobbies - now only recreationally sports, carpentry, DIY and cottage industry, which brings him joy and relaxation.