Dr. sc. ing. Ilgars Grosvalds (1927–2019) was an outstanding chemist technologician, scientist and educator, he worked in the area of construction and was a lecturer and teacher. He was the director of the Latvian Museum of Chemistry, honorary member of the Latvian Association of History of Science, scientist emeritus of the State of Latvia. He was born in the USA but his family returned to Latvia already in the late 1920s.
I. Grosvalds was a prolific science historian. His recent studies in the Latvian history of science include its development, scientific institutes and scientists in Latvia and the world. I. Grosvalds is the co-author of the monograph History of the Higher Technical Education in Latvia in five parts, he has documented the lives of Latvian scientists abroad in review papers “Ways and fates of Latvian chemists in the world”, “Latvian pharmacists in exile”, “Contribution of the Latvian University natural scientists in exile”.
In 1994, I. Grosvalds received the highest award of the Riga Technical University, Paul Walden Award and medal, for the cycle of works “Development of Science and Technologies in Latvia and Exile”. He received also other awards, and in 2017, in his 90th jubilee he was honoured with accolades of the Rector of Riga Technical University Leonīds Ribickis and President of the Latvian Academy of Sciences Ojārs Spārītis. On 21 February 2019, not long before his passing away, Ilgars Grosvalds, as a researcher of the history of science and Director of the Latvian Museum of History of Chemistry, was granted the Diploma of Acknowledgement of the Ministry of Education and Science, for significant contribution to the development of natural and historical sciences in Latvia.