We, the Editors and the Editorial Board Members of Acta Chromatographica, take an immense honour and great pleasure in conveying our best wishes to Professor Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos on the occasion of her 70th birthday. She has been on board with us in her capacity of Editor for the past 14 years now and she has selflessly served the journal with her hard work, undeterred optimism, genuine kindness, and an outstanding expertise in the field of chromatography. It is not an exaggeration to say that all these precious qualities have largely contributed to the stable and even strengthened position of our journal on an increasingly more competitive international stage. Her main responsibility as journal's Editor is to handle and approve for the publication those submissions which arrive from the areas of phytochemistry and pharmacognosy, quasi-automatically meaning inclusion of traditional medicines from the different world regions and cultural circles (now being in a steadily growing demand) in the thematic scope of our journal and bringing it to awareness of our international reading public.
Professor Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos was born on May 23rd, 1950 in Lublin, Poland. Most probably from her older family members she inherited an interest in sciences. In the first instance, it was from her late father, Professor Andrzej Waksmundzki, who had for several decades headed the Chair of Physical Chemistry at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University of Lublin and who pioneered in the research on chromatography and on fibre optics technology in Poland. Perhaps it is also noteworthy to mention that she is a niece of the late Professor Stefan Banach, one of the most outstanding mathematicians of the 20th century. Professor Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and from the same university in 1980 she took her PhD degree in analytical chemistry, supervised by Professor Edward Soczewiński. From the very beginning, her own professional career has been connected to the Medical University of Lublin, where she climbed up all the steps of an academic ladder from a young assistant to full professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy and where now she heads the Department of Inorganic Chemistry. Her research interests are broad and they embrace the theory and applications of liquid chromatography, with special accents laid on optimization of chromatographic systems for the separation and quantitation of drugs and their degradation products in pharmaceutical preparations, on optimization of chromatographic systems for the separation and quantitation of drugs and their metabolites in body fluids, and on isolation and/or separation of secondary metabolites in the extracts of plant tissues. An abundant publication output of Professor Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos embraces over 200 scientific papers, most of them published in the leading chromatography journals (e.g., J. Chromatogr. A, J. Chromatogr. B, J. Chromatogr. Sci., J. Planar Chromatogr. – Modern TLC, J. Liq. Chromatogr. Relat. Technol., etc.). She also used to act as an invited guest editor for such journals as J. AOAC Int. and Med. Chem., and she co-edited three monographs for the Chromatographic Science Series of the CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group (Thin-Layer Chromatography in Phytochemistry, vol. 99; High Performance Liquid Chromatography in Phytochemical Analysis, vol. 102; and Thin Layer Chromatography in Drug Analysis, vol. 106). It is probably needless to add that Prof. Monika Waksmundzka-Hajnos is a seasoned academic teacher to many generations of the Lublin pharmacy students, who has lectured general and inorganic chemistry to the pharmacy undergraduate students and chromatography to the graduates. She has also supervised ca. 200 MSc theses and 10 PhD theses on the different pharmacy-related issues, always accomplished with use of chromatography.
Personal friends of Monika know her not only as an accomplished scientist, experienced editor, and dedicated academic teacher, but as a human being devoted body and soul to her little homeland in the Tatra Mountains, which is the highest elevation of the Carpathian Range and surprisingly enough, the highest elevation between the Alps and the Ural also. Tatras enjoy a very privileged position in collective Polish sentiment, owing to their breathtakingly scenic landscapes and a unique folklore, which draws from the richness of an entire Carpathian Basin. For summer holidays, Monika with her family of three generations traditionally escapes from the turbulent and vibrant Lublin to her cosy mountain residence in the Tatra village of Ostrowsko, to live for a couple of months the life of her paternal and maternal mountaineer forefathers, to do some gardening, to breed bees, and simply to enjoy an unspoiled nature. Always ready to entertain friends who might unexpectedly pop in to her little paradise surrounded by steep green slopes and swift streams, and to present them with jars of an exquisite mountain honey and bottles of a primeval honey drink across Europe known as mead. Owing to her dedication to the pastoral Tatra Mountains heritage with a sophisticated folklore, to her good command of the local dialect and to her formal education in music, she acts as an inspiring promoter of her ancestral region by heading the Lublin branch of the all-Polish cultural association, which gathers people from all different paths of life who share common Tatra Mountains roots.
Dear Monika, may all the years ahead bring you good health and joy, and successful perpetuation of all your fruitful activities and passions. Wishing you many happy returns,
Teresa Kowalska and Mieczysław Sajewicz, Co-Editors-in-Chief
Danica Agbaba, and Ivana Stanimirova-Daszykowska, Editors
Editorial Board