Sigvard Eklund


Sigvard Arne Eklund was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1961 to 1981.

Career

Eklund was born in Kiruna, Norrbotten County, Sweden, the son of train driver Severin Eklund and his wife Vilhelmina. Eklund obtained his Master of Science degree in 1936, a Licentiate of Philosophy degree in 1941 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Uppsala University in 1946. He was Docent in nuclear physics at the Royal Institute of Technology and an employee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Institute of Physics from 1937 to 1945. Eklund was an associate professor at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute from 1945 to 1950 and became Director of Research at the Swedish Atomic Energy Company in 1950. He became Technical Director there in 1957 and led the effort to build Sweden's first research reactor, R1.
In 1957, he was Secretary General for the Second International United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. He was appointed as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1961. Eklund was reappointed four more times in 1965, 1969, 1974 and 1977, holding the post for twenty consecutive years until he retired and was named Director General Emeritus.
Eklund became a member of the Swedish National Commission for Physics in 1947 and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1953. He became an honorary doctor in Graz in 1968, in Kraków 1971 and in Bucharest in 1971. Eklund became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1972 and honorary doctor of technology at Chalmers University of Technology in 1974 and at the Columbia University in 1977. He became an honorary doctor in Moscow in 1977 and in Buenos Aires in 1977. Eklund became an honorary doctor of technology in Budapest in 1977, an honorary senator at the University of Vienna in 1977, an honorary doctor of technology in Dresden in 1978, at the Yonsei University in Seoul in 1978, at the National Agrarian University in Peru in 1979 and at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1980. Eklund became a member of the National Academy of Engineering in United States in 1979.
He received the American Atoms for Peace Award in 1968.

Personal life

In 1941 he married adjunct lecturer Anna-Greta Johansson, the daughter of merchant Algot Johansson and his wife Ester. After retiring, Eklund resided in Vienna, Austria until he died in 2000.