Dr Mahesh Badanal was awarded a SCAR Visiting Scholarship in 2018 and was hosted by Dr Stephen J Roberts at the British Antarctic Survey, United Kingdom in September and October 2019.
During his visit Dr Badanal gained an insight into different proxy techniques that can be applied to derive past climate data from lacustrine/marine sedimentary archives in East Antarctica and developed a strong international core research group on Antarctic paleolimnology. He also presented a talk titled “Paleolimnological investigations from ice-free regions of East Antarctic: an overview from the Indian context” and as well as the British Antarctic Survey visited the Organic Geochemistry Unit of the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol, the Protistology & Aquatic Ecology Department of Ghent University and the School of Geography, Politics & Sociology at the University of Newcastle.
Dr Badanal reflected
“The SCAR Visiting Scholar award gave me an opportunity to meet pioneers in the field of Antarctic research. Their diverse field of expertise (geology, ecology, biogeography, climate change, organic geochemistry, ice sheet dynamics, geomorphology etc.) helped me to gain insights in to how these fields overlap on each other. Thanks to this visit, I gained more insights and the way I look at a research problem has changed. The people whom I met and worked with were not only excellent scientists/researchers in their respective fields but also very good people with pleasing and humble personalities. This had a very significant impact on me and their attitude towards science and life was really excellent and had a significant impact on me.”
The Visiting Scholar scheme provides the opportunity for awardees to undertake a short-term visit to another SCAR member country to provide or receive training and mentoring, and is part of SCAR’s Capacity Building activities.
Dr Badanal’s full report is available through the SCAR Library.