The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) and the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) have marked Antarctica Day by announcing the recipients of this year’s Antarctic Fellowships. The annual Antarctic Fellowships are an investment in the professional development of talented early career researchers and aim to further the understanding of human presence in Antarctica.
The SCAR Fellowship Programme is designed to encourage the active involvement of early-career researchers in furthering our understanding of Antarctica. We are pleased to announce the 2022 Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation SCAR Fellowship. This is the first SCAR Fellowship to be funded as part of the Polar Initiative. The other SCAR Fellowships will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 2022 Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation SCAR Fellowship is awarded to Hanna Yevchun from the State Institution National Antarctic Scientific Center, Kyiv, Ukraine. She will visit the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK, for her project entitled “Remotely detecting and mapping biodiversity in Antarctica using VHR satellite and UAV data”. The project aims to assess the effectiveness of different techniques for semi-automatic or automatic mapping of the main Antarctic plant communities, as well as penguin and kelp gull nesting sites.
SCAR has been offering scientific Fellowships to early career scientists since 2003. The Fellowships support the scientific goals of SCAR, enabling the early career researchers to join a project team from another country, opening up new opportunities and often creating research partnerships that last many years and over many Antarctic research seasons.
Since 2003, 79 SCAR Fellowships have been awarded.
Have a look at our webpage for tips how to prepare your Fellowship application and testimonial from our past Fellows.
Fellowship announcements from our partners
IAATO and COMNAP joined forces to award their fellowships to three early career researchers. IAATO has awarded its $15,000 USD fellowship to post graduate student Eduardo Pizarro González from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. COMNAP and IAATO are jointly funding an $8,000 USD fellowship for Antonio Polo Sánchez from Universidad de Salamanca in Spain and COMNAP has awarded Aanchal Jain from Universidad Mayor in Chile.
Eduardo’s focus will be patterns of distribution, abundance, and population trends of six Antarctic and Subantarctic penguin species affected by climate change, through the implementation of different approaches to Ecological Niche Modelling. His research will help to develop conservation strategies for these species and to further explore modelling approaches to account for global change processes in wildlife conservation.
Antonio’s project will enhance understanding of volcanic processes in Bransfield Strait (Antarctica) by studying two submarine volcanoes (Three Sisters and Orca) and one subaerial volcano (Deception Island) through Noble Gas geochemistry. Ultimately his work will contribute to explain why volcanic activity is more concentrated in some areas of Bransfield Strait than others with implications for volcano monitoring.
Aanchal’s project aims at identifying plastic pollution in the Antarctic Treaty area and at understanding how policies can be implemented to reduce plastic waste. The project aligns to one of the priority projects for COMNAP being the understanding of plastic waste source and removal options.
For more information about the IAATO Antarctic Fellows 2022 visit https://iaato.org/news-room/.