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Top Russian grad student at UD for permafrost research

Frederick E. Nelson (left), professor of geography and director of the University’s Permafrost Group, and research associates Dmitriy Streletskiy (center) and Nikolay Shiklomanov study an atlas for permafrost zones.
10:46 a.m., April 15, 2004--A talented Russian graduate student is continuing his work in permafrost science in the University of Delaware’s Department of Geography after winning a Russian Federation Presidential Scholarship to study abroad.

Dmitriy A. Streletskiy, a recent graduate of Moscow State University, is conducting research at UD through 2004 and will participate in two expeditions to the far reaches of Alaska for fieldwork, according to Frederick E. Nelson, professor of geography and director of the University’s Permafrost Group.

Nikolay I. Shiklomanov, UD research associate in geography, said the scholarship is “extremely competitive” and limited to just 40 graduate students in all disciplines from throughout the Russian Federation.

Nelson said the fact that Streletskiy made UD his first choice “is a significant event as it clearly adds to our stature as an internationally recognized institution.”

“It is also significant,” he said, “because Russia is the birthplace of permafrost science. It is very gratifying for us to have someone from the top university and one of the best permafrost-education programs in Russia choose us as the vehicle for his foreign educational experience.”

Nelson has been involved in cooperative research with permafrost scientists in Moscow and the State Hydrological Institute in St. Petersburg since 1988. The Institute’s Department of Climatology was home to the eminent scientist Mikhail Budyko, whose climate-modeling experiments were early predictors of greenhouse climate warming.

Most models of climatic change indicate that warming will be particularly acute in the polar regions, providing impetus for much of the UD permafrost group’s research, Nelson said.

Budyko’s successor, Oleg A. Anisimov, holds a research appointment in UD’s Center for Climatic Research and is often in residence here during parts of the fall semester.

Shiklomanov, who worked at the institute prior to undertaking graduate work in the United States, noted that the cooperation between UD and the State Hydrological Institute connects the legacies of Budyko and C.W. Thornthwaite, widely regarded as the 20th century’s two most influential and visionary climatologists.

Thornthwaite’s Laboratory of Climatology in southern New Jersey was an internationally acclaimed institute specializing in applied and agricultural climatology, and it provided rigorous and innovative graduate education in climate studies. The late John R. Mather, founder of UD’s graduate programs in geography and climatology, worked with Thornthwaite for many years prior to coming to Delaware in the early 1960s.

Streletskiy came by his interest in the permafrost science naturally. His mother, Irina D. Streletskaya, is a member of the geography department at Moscow State University, and he accompanied her on research expeditions at an early age.

Streletskiy wrote his first published paper on geocryology, or the study of permafrost, while in the eighth grade. Since then, he has published more than a dozen papers on the subject.

The graduate student said he first became aware of the UD program during a conference in Rome in 1999. There he met several American researchers, including Shiklomanov and Jerry Brown, currently president of the International Permafrost Association, who recommended programs at UD and at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Streletskiy said he selected UD both because of the program itself and because its location on the East Coast would enable him to “cover as much ground as possible” while in the United States.

Nelson said the UD College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of Graduate Studies have been supportive in providing financial resources that will make it possible for the permafrost group to take Streletskiy on two trips to northern Alaska.

The first trip will be in June, when the scientists will visit the North Slope. They will be based at the University of Alaska’s Toolik Field Station and will work in Prudhoe Bay and Barrow, the northernmost settlement in the United States.

They will return in August, which Nelson said will be a “really intensive” research trip to monitor the variability of near surface temperature regimes and seasonal thaw.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Kathy Atkinson

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