Andrzej Jankowski was born on April 20, 1939 in Toruń. His father Edward Jankowski was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 in Warsaw, and was killed in Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg at the beginning of 1945. After the war Mrs. Jankowska moved with her son to Gdańsk.In 1955 Andrzej graduated from the Gdańsk Secondary School of Shipping Industry and began to study mathematics at Mikołaj Kopernik University in Toruń. In June 1960 he received his Master's Degree, and in the same year started to work as an assistant in the Mathematical Seminar at Toruń University. He was interested in the foundations of geometry, and started writing and publishing on this topic while still a student.The end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s was a time of great successes in algebraic and differential topology. The answers to many classical problems were found at this time. In work by J. Milnor, S. Smale, and J. F. Adams the method of algebraic topology proved its strength and effectiveness. That was the direction in which Andrzej's interests evolved at the time of his studies. This wasn't easy — in Poland there was actually no tradition of algebraic and differential topology. In the beginning Andrzej participated in the seminar on topology and homological algebra carried out by A. Granas at Toruń University. At that time he wrote with A. Granas and K. Gęba a study in infinite dimensional topology.

Warsaw years (1962–1969)

On October 1, 1962 Andrzej moved to Warsaw University where he started working as senior assistant. His Doctor's Degree dealt with algebraic topology, particularly homotopy theory. In June 1966 he defended his doctoral thesis "On Homotopy Classifications of Maps", in which he constructed an obstruction theory to the extension of maps dual to the standard obstruction theory based on the Moore-Postnikov decomposition. Jankowski's theory was based on the Eckmann-Hilton homological decomposition of maps.In October 1966 Jankowski was appointed a lecturer in the Topology faculty of Warsaw University. In the academic year 1966–67 apart from classes he carried out a seminar on the foundations of algebraic topology and delivered a lecture course on homological algebra within the Interschool Council of Mathematics programme. In that way he started his work with the aim of attracting students to algebraic topology and founding a group actively dealing with it.His work was supported by others. In 1967 the Polish Seminar of Algebraic Topology, run by A. Granas, started its activity. That same year the 1st Summer School of Algebraic Topology was held in Sopot, organized by A. Granas and K. Gęba. In the following years further schools of this kind would be organized with an increasing group of students and the participation of foreign mathematicians.

Polish Academy of Sciences and Moscow

In the years 1966–1970 homotopy theory was still dominant in Andrzej's research. This was extended by research in the field of differential topology and especially the theory of bordism. In February 1969 Andrzej moved from Warsaw University to the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. From Autumn 1969 onwards he organized the seminar in differential topology focused on actions of compact Lie groups on manifolds.In the years 1970–1971 he worked on "Algebras of the cohomology operations in some cohomology theories". In August 1971 it was published as Preprint no. 19 of the Mathematics Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, which became his Habilitation Thesis in June 1972.In December 1970 Andrzej left for Moscow to stay for a year, working with S. P. Novikov, A. S. Mishchenko, V. M. Buchstaber and others. After his return to Poland he moved to Gdańsk, where he worked at a branch of the Mathematics Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences and lectured at the newly founded University of Gdańsk. The works prepared in 1971–1973 were awarded the S. Zaremba Prize of the Polish Mathematical Society in 1974.

Final journey

In February 1975 he stayed for a month at Oxford University as a fellow of the International Mathematical Union. He delivered lectures at Oxford as well as at the Universities of Cambridge, London, Warwick and Manchester.In August 1975, at the age of 36, Andrzej Jankowski took part in a high mountain expedition in the Hindukush from which he never came back. He was buried on the 7000 m high plateau of the massif Tirich Mir.