Borde Irena (1930)

Borde Irena (born 3 March 1930, Riga) – mechanical engineer, thermophysicist, professor.

From 1936 to 1941, Irena Borde studied at the French Lycée in Riga, and later at a school in Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Krai. She completed her secondary education in 1950 at Riga Secondary School No. 10. That same year, she enrolled at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute.

In 1952, she was arrested upon leaving a lecture and held in solitary confinement for one month in a Leningrad prison. She was then sent to Kansk. She resumed her education at the Siberian Technical Institute in Krasnoyarsk, graduating in 1955 and immediately beginning an academic career there, progressing from lecturer to associate professor. From 1955 to 1958, she undertook postgraduate studies at the same institution. She was awarded her doctoral degree by the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in 1963.

In 1967, Irena Borde returned to Riga, where she worked as an associate professor at the Riga Polytechnic Institute until 1973. In November 1973, she emigrated with her family to Israel and settled in Be'er Sheva. From 1974, she worked as head of a laboratory, and later head of the Department of Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Borde holds three patents and is the author of over 300 articles in scientific journals and conference proceedings, focusing on thermodynamics, absorption heat systems, and related fields. She is recognised internationally as an expert in energy systems, a member of the International Institute of Refrigeration (Paris), and of the International Committee on Absorption Heat Pumps.

She received multiple international awards for scientific achievements. In 1989, in honour of the 40th anniversary of the State of Israel, she was recognised by the Israeli government as one of ten women of outstanding professional merit.

Her husband, Lev Bakas (b. 1922, Kaunas), was a mechanical engineer and former GULAG prisoner for ten years.