László Makra
László Makra (Siklós, 5 June 1952) is a climatologist and university professor. His main research area is pollen climatology and, within this, analysis of climatological relationships of ragweed pollen, as well as relationship between ragweed pollen concentration and respiratory diseases. Career. László Makra graduated from high school in 1970 at Komló, and then in 1971 enrolled at the József Attila University of Szeged, Faculty of Natural Sciences, reading mathematics and geography, and graduating in 1976. Afterwards he started working as assistant lecturer at the Department of Climatology of the university. From 1996 to 2015 he was associate professor  at the same department and, since 2015, he has been working at the Faculty of Agriculture, Institute of Management and Rural Development of Szeged University, located in Hódmezővásárhely. In 2016, he became a full professor. He defended his university doctoral thesis in 1978 and PhD thesis in 1995, respectively. Later, in 2004 he was habilitated at the University of Debrecen. He spent several weeks on study tours in Indonesia (Yogyakarta, 1989), China Beijing, 1993; Guangzhou (Canton), 1995] and the Czech Republic (Brno, 1996). He is a member of the editorial board of several Hungarian scientific periodicals, editor in an international  scientific journal, member of the editorial board of seven international scientific journals, and is also committee member of the International Ragweed Society (2014- to date). Research. His main research area is background aerosol and bio-aerosol and, within the latter, climatic relationships of pollen, i.e. pollen climatology. This is a relatively new area in the international literature and a completely new area in Hungary. His research activities within pollen climatology are as follows: pollen statistics; pollen transport modeling; pollen concentration forecast; analysis of the relationship between respiratory diseases and pollen concentration; climate sensitivity analysis of different taxa; as well as  expected future pollen concentrations within the context of climate change. Key results. He led successful instrumental field research expeditions into Inner Asia (China, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 1990 and 1994), Indonesia (Java, Bali, 1996) and South America (Brazil, 1998) in order to determine the elemental composition of the regional background aerosol. The air samples collected by him and the data obtained were processed together with his colleagues at the Institute for Nuclear Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in Debrecen. Main results of the expeditions. China expeditions (1990, 1994). The high sulfur and chlorine content of the regional aerosol is  of natural origin (rock salt, Glauber's salt, gypsum), and it is a consequence of the widespread and intense salt accumulation in the outlet of the Tarim Basin. Secondly the elemental ratios of Si/Fe and Ca/Fe can be used as markers to track the long-range transport of aerosol coming from the Takla Makan area resulting in the yellow wind phenomenon over the inner and eastern parts of China, and called the Kosa phenomenon over Japan, the Pacific Ocean and North America. Indonesian expedition (1996). Chlorine, sulfur, copper, zinc and chromium are substantially enriched in the atmospheric aerosol  both over Java and Bali; most of the chlorine is of oceanic origin (ocean mist) and the sulfur is partly of anthropogenic origin and partly comes from biogenic emissions of the ocean; and copper, zinc and chromium probably originate from soils. Pollen climatology. László Makra established the branch of pollen climatology in Hungary. He is an internationally recognised researcher of the transport of particulate matter and bio-aerosol. He also identified the key source areas of long-range ragweed pollen transport arriving in the Carpathian Basin. He developed a procedure for separating long-range transport and regional transport of particulate  matter and ragweed pollen, respectively. In addition, he determined the components of the transport, as well as the relative quantity of the net transport in the comprehensive and detailed maps of the quantitative and phenological parameters of ragweed pollen for Europe, and with these phenological parameters he produced the first maps for the continent. He is the author or co-author of over three hundred scientific publications.