Prof. Jan Szolgay was born in Bratislava in former Czechoslovakia. He received his MSc at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava in 1976, a Diploma in Hydrology at the Lomonosow University Moscow in 1978 and concluded his studies with a PhD in Hydrology and Water Resources Management at the Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1982. From 1982 to 1990 he was with the Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Since 1991 he is with the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, where he lead the Department of Land and Water Resources Management till 2019. From 1999-2000 and 2011-2019 he also served as Vice Dean for Science of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. At present he is the Vice-Rector for Science of the SUT.

Engineering hydrology and water resources management were in the focus of his research interest ever since. His research experience includes river flow modelling and forecasting, the stochastic modelling of river flows, assessment of impacts of human influence and climate change on hydrological regimes and water resources management, hydrological mapping, modelling of water resources systems, at site and regional flood frequency analysis. In his research he has made profound and numerous contributions to regional hydrology and water resources management. As in most of his research, methods strike a fine balance between building on a process basis and engineering principles taking into account the sparse data in the Central European water resources setting.

His educational and research achievements were honored by several awards. He became Honorary Professor of the Szechenyi Istvan University Hungary in 1999 and Honorary Member of the Hungarian Hydrological Society in 2000. He received the Oto Dub Medal of the SUT in 2003, became Professor of the year at SUT in 2007, Scientist of the year at the SUT in 2008, was awarded the Henry Darcy Medal by the European Geophysical Union in 2011, the Dionyz Stur Medal of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 2013 and the Ludo Molnar Medal of the Slovak Committee for the International Hydrological Program of UNESCO in 2013, Volker medal by the International Association of the Hydrological Sciences in 2019.