Email: dandfarcas@yahoo.com
Dan D. Farcaș was born in Reșița in 1940. He graduated in 1960 from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the institute that became the West University of Timișoara in 1962. He has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Bucharest in 1979. He also attended specialization internships: at IBM: Bucharest, 1968, Paris, 1969, Bonn, 1971, at Sophia Antipolis (France), 1996, as well as other courses in: programming, teleactivities, mathematical modeling in health, health economics, demography, etc.
From 1962 to 1967 he worked as a computer scientist at the MECIPT-1 electronic computer, at the Politehnica Institute of Timișoara, (currently Politehnica University of Timișoara), where he carried out, among other works, the first neural network simulations in Romania. He received help or information for this purpose from Grigore C. Moisil, Eduard Pamfil, Victor Săhleanu, Edmond Nicolau, Constantin Bălăceanu-Stolnici and Vasile Baltac. He led, at the same Institute, as an assistant, seminars on the mathematical foundations of computers and programming in machine code, to the first three series of computer engineers in Romania.
Moving in September 1967 to Bucharest, to the Center for the Advanced Training of Management Personnel in Enterprises CEPECA, he led and carried out, from 1968, major computerization projects, including, between 1971-1975, the first computer system of the Ministry of Health, and between 1978-1982, the computer system SISTEH – for science and technology (under the CNȘT). He taught computer science courses at CEPECA, including, starting in 1969, the first COBOL language courses in Romania.
He was an assistant (paid by the hour) at the Academy of Economic Studies, Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, discipline “Management Information Systems” (1971-1973).
Between 1983 and 1990 he was an analyst and head of the team of mathematical methods in health care at the Center for Health Computing and Statistics of the Ministry of Health. In this capacity, he led and carried out computer simulations of epidemics or demo-economic scenarios, forecasts, etc. He developed a methodology for calculating the social efficiency of health actions.
In 1990-91 he was director and expert instructor at the Romanian Institute of Management (IROMA, 1990), successor to CEPECA.
Since 1991 he has returned to the Center for Health Computing and Statistics, serving as Director (1997-1998), Deputy Director for IT (1991-1994, 2001-2002), Head of Service for Research and Strategies (1994-1996, 1998-2001, 2003-2010) and Head of several national health informatics projects.
He was a temporary advisor to the World Health Organization for two projects (1997-2001) and an expert in the working group on e-health interoperability of the Directorate-General for Information Society and Media of the European Commission, and was also the author of two country reports on health informatics in Romania, for the European Commission (2006-2010). Retired since September 2010.
Senior Scientific Researcher I, degree conferred by the National Informatics Commission, Institute for Informatics Research No. 122 of 8.02.1995.
Expert at the National Informatics Commission (part time, for audits and projects) (1991-1999).
Expert and Advisor I (part-time) at the Ministry of Research and Technology, for research and development strategies in Romania (1994-2000).
He was elected corresponding member in 1991, and in 1993 a full member of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He was the president of the Informatics Commission of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1991-2002), and is currently the vice president of the Medical Informatics and Data Protection Commission. During the period 1991-2010 he was vice president of the Romanian Society of Medical Informatics. Since 2012, he has been a member of the Romanian Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology of the Romanian Academy, Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science.
Since 2021, he has been the vice-president of the Biometrics Commission of the Romanian Academy
Founding member, in 2006, of the Center for Studies on Frontier Sciences, within the UNESCO Commission for Romania.
Starting in 1966, he made himself known by publishing science fiction stories, in the early years under the pseudonym Dan Arcașu. Since 1998, he has been the vice-president, and since 2011, he has been the president of the Association for the Study of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (ASFAN). Since 2021, he has been the representative for Romania in the International Coalition for Extraterrestrial Research (ICER).
He has published, in the country and abroad, about 40 books in fields such as computer science, mathematics, essays, ufology, memoirs. He has published over 1400 articles, mainly popularization, most of them in: Magazin, Ştiința și Tehnică, Contemporanul (1973-1981), Curtea de la Argeș (from 2010-present), but also in specialized publications, including abroad. He has participated in numerous radio and TV shows, including abroad, many of them related to phenomenology UFOs and hypothetical extraterrestrial civilizations.
The book “Medical Informatics”, of which he is a co-author, was awarded the Gheorghe Marinescu Prize by the Romanian Academy in 1991.
Dan D. Farcaș has been an honorary citizen of the municipality of Reșița since 2006.