Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska and climate scientist Svitlana Krakovska have been elected as international members of the US National Academy of Sciences, one of the world's most prestigious scientific societies. This recognition is a sign of deep respect for their scientific achievements.
This was said on the NAS website.
The new members were elected "in recognition of their outstanding achievements in original research".
A total of 150 scientists joined the academy this year: 120 from the United States and 30 from other countries.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1863. It provides scientific, engineering, and medical advice to the U.S. government and other institutions, and membership is considered one of the highest forms of scientific recognition. Currently, the NAS has 2662 active members and 556 international members.
Who is Maryna Vyazovska?
Marina Vyazovskaya is Professor and Head of the Department of Number Theory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. In 2022, she became the second woman in history to receive the prestigious Fields Medal, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
Her international recognition came from her solution to the problem of optimal packing of spheres in 8-dimensional space, part of Hilbert's 18th problem, which remained unsolved for more than four centuries. Viazovska's solution, published in 2016, is considered a model of elegance and mathematical precision and has applications in digital technologies, especially in coding theory and cryptography.
In the same year, she was included in the Time100 Next list, a ranking of people who are changing the future of the world. The Ukrainian media has repeatedly mentioned her as an example of the global recognition of Ukrainian science.
Who is Svitlana Krakovska?
Svitlana Krakovska is one of the most famous Ukrainian climatologists, head of the Laboratory of Applied Climatology at the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute. She is a world-renowned expert on climate change, using mathematical models to explain not only the current state of the climate, but also future trends.
In 1997, Krakovska participated in the second Ukrainian Antarctic expedition to the Akademik Vernadsky station. Since 2013, she has represented Ukraine in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative international body in this field.
In 2022, the journal Nature included her in the list of the 10 most influential scientists in the world. In the same year, after Russia's full-scale invasion, Krakowska openly stated the connection between wars and climate change. She noted that the struggle for control of fossil fuel resources, the main source of greenhouse gas emissions, is one of the driving forces behind global conflicts.
Author: Danylo Pievchev