SPbU scientist awarded by honourable medal by RGS
SPbU graduate and senior lecturer Valerii Lukn has been awarded by the Gold Medal named after A.F. Treshnikov.
The Gold Medal named after A.F. Treshnikov was established by the Russian geographical Society in 2014 for research in the Polar Regions.
Valerii Lukin is the first to be awarded the Gold Medal for planning and undertaking the expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. Valerii Lukin, says the Director of the Institute of the Earth Sciences and Vice-President of the RGS Kirill Chistiakov, is a second to none in exploration of the polar regions and worth to be awarded the medal. N the Arctic, Valerii Lukin was a leader of the drifting stations SP-22 and SP-29, studied overturning circulations of the Arctic Ocean, built 4,500 flight hours, and had over 1,000 landings on the drifting ice as a glacier observer.
Academician Aleksei Federovich Treshnikov is a legendary polar explorer, head of the drifting station “North Pole-3” (1954–1955), second and thirteenth Antarctic expeditions of the RAS of the USSR (1956–1958 and 1967–1968), Director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, head of the Department of Ocean Studies at the Leningrad State University.
Since 1991, Valerii Lukin has been a leader of the Russian Antarctic Expedition that has been continuously carrying out field works in the Antarctic and South Ocean since 1955. In 1992, Valerii Lukin was the head of the Russian-American drifting station “Waddle-1” in the South hemisphere for the first time of the history of the station. In 2016, he celebrated his 70th anniversary. Now he is the head of the research carried out in the Antarctic and serves as a head of the department of collaboration with management of the Antarctic Treaty System.
Valerii Lukin is not the only scientist at the University who dedicate their lives to the Antarctic: each year SPbU’s staff are member of the annual Antarctic expedition.