Matey Mateev, a Bulgarian theoretical physicist with ties to ICTP in its early days and beyond, died in a car accident on 25 July 2010. Mateev made particularly valuable scientific contributions to theoretical and mathematical physics.

He was at ICTP for the first time during the academic year 1966/67 as an IAEA and UNESCO fellow, and came several times after. While he was at ICTP in 1967 he befriended Alvaro de Rujula, Angelo Della Selva, Vladimir Kadishevsky and Luis Masperi, all of whom have become prominent physicists.

An obituary by Mateev's home institute, Sofia University, is available here.