Liviu Constantinescu  Liviu Constantinescu (26 November 1914 – 29 November 1997) was a Romanian geophysicist, professor of geophysics, member of the Romanian Academy. He was the cofounder, together with Sabba S. Ştefănescu, of the Romanian school of geophysics. Born into an old family of Christian Orthodox clerics from Transylvania, Liviu Constantinescu ignored suggestions from family and teachers to become an engineer or teacher and decided to study natural sciences. He earned a master's degree in physics and chemistry (1935) and a doctor's degree in physics (1941) from the University of Bucharest. After a few years as teaching assistant at the Department of Sciences of his "alma mater" (1937–1943), he was appointed director of the newly founded "Geophysical Observatory Surlari", named today "National Geomagnetic Observatory Surlari “Liviu Constantinescu”" (1943–1958); this started his career as a geophysicist. He was appointed professor (1949–1975) at a newly created Department of Geophysics, led by Sabba S. Ştefănescu and later by Liviu Constantinescu himself; in parallel, he directed geophysical research at various institutes of earth sciences of the Romanian Academy (1959–1970). Discriminated politically for his repeated refusal to join the ruling communist party, he was forced into early retirement at age 60 (1975); he came back after the fall of the dictatorship, fifteen years later. In 1990 he was elected full member of the Romanian Academy (he had been a corresponding member since 1963) and president of its Section of Geonomic Sciences (1990–1994). Until his definitive retirement (1995), he devoted himself to rebuilding the Romanian Academy and the geophysical institutions in Romania; he was president of the Romanian National Committee of Geodesy and Geophysics and of the Romanian Society of Geophysics. Liviu Constantinescu has made important contributions to several domains of pure and applied geophysics: geomagnetism (normal distribution and secular variation of the main geomagnetic field, general morphology and particularities of magnetic perturbations, magnetotellurics); handling and interpretation of gravimetric and magnetometric data (analytic continuation of potential fields, effects of Earth tides, time variation of the gravity field); seismology and tectonophysics (focal mechanism of earthquakes, seismicity and seismotectonics, Carpathian earthquakes, seismicity of the Romanian territory).