It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Professor Krzysztof Belczyński, the founder of Startrack code and the principal investigator of this project, who left us on January 13, 2024, at the age of 52.
Professor Belczyński was the creator of the StarTrack binary population synthesis code — his large lifetime project, born in the late 1990s out of a fascination with binary stars and gravitational wave astronomy. What began as a tool to study gamma-ray bursts grew into one of the most influential frameworks in modern astrophysics, shaping our understanding of how compact objects — neutron stars and black holes — form and evolve.
Over the course of his career, Prof. Belczyński authored more than 300 publications that collectively gathered over 26,000 citations. His team created a synthetic model of the Universe enabling a global evaluation of the evolution of binary star systems as potential gravitational wave sources. His predictions about the masses and collision rates of black holes were confirmed by the historic first detection of gravitational waves in 2015 — a discovery awarded the Nobel Prize in 2017.
Professor Belczyński was associated with the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center since 1995. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2001, his habilitation in 2010, and was awarded the title of professor of physical sciences in 2014. Since 2017, he had been a professor at CAMK PAN in Warsaw.
Beyond science, Krzysztof was a man of extraordinary vitality. He blazed his own trail across the world’s most extreme mountains — the Himalayas, Karakoram, Baffin Island, Alaska, and Patagonia — and in recent years embraced kiteboarding, snowboarding, and kayaking with the same relentless energy he brought to astrophysics.
His knowledge, passion, and dedication were an inspiration to all who worked alongside him. He was colorful and courageous — always smiling, ready to fight until the end, capable of charting the most challenging paths and following them through.
He is deeply missed.
Link to official note: https://www.camk.edu.pl/en/archiwum/2024/01/14/professor-krzysztof-belczynski-has-passed-away/
