Pavel Oblozinsky was born on the 16th of December 1943 in Bratislava, Slovakia.
He studied nuclear physics at the Czech Technical University in Prague from 1961 to 1964 and then at the Moscow State University in 1965-1966. He obtained the Master of Science in nuclear physics from the Czech Technical University in 1967, graduating with red diploma (summa cum laude), and he received his PhD in 1973 from the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
There he spent twenty years, until 1993, as nuclear physicist, covering the role of Head of the Nuclear Physics Department from 1973 to 1980. His research activity spanned nuclear reaction mechanisms at low incident energies, neutron-induced reactions, reactions with 14 MeV neutrons, and the theory of preequilibrium decay. In fact, Pavel Oblozinsky is worldwide known for his numerous contributions to the exciton preequilibrium model of nuclear reactions.
In 1994 he integrated the Nuclear Data Section of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, where he became Deputy Section Head and coordinated several international research projects in nuclear reaction data. In particular, he developed the internationally recognized Reference Input Parameter Library for nuclear reaction calculations by nuclear model codes.
In 2000 he moved to the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the US and joined the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC), he led from 2002 to 2009.
He chaired from 2001 to 2009 the Cross Section Evaluation Working Group and the US Nuclear Data Program. He supervised the release of the major upgrade of the US nuclear data evaluated library ENDF/B-VII.0 in 2006. He has been editor of Special Issues of the Nuclear Data Sheets since 2006 and he worked on the evaluation of neutron cross sections for fission products and neutron cross section covariances.
He got the Silver Medal for scientific achievements from the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1993, the Merit Award for outstanding performance from the IAEA in 1998, and the Appreciation Award for outstanding leadership of the NNDC from the Department of Energy in 2009.
In March 2011 he retired from BNL and moved to Bratislava.
Married to Ludmila since 1973, he has two sons and two grandsons.
