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Valentina Savaglia is a PhD student supported by a FRIA/FNRS grant specialising in cyanobacterial diversity, genetics and biogeography in Antarctic regions at the Centre d’Ingénierie des Protéines (CIP, Centre for Protein Engineering), Université of Liège and the Laboratory of Protistology and Aquatic Ecology (PAE), Ghent University.

Valentina is part of the MICROBIAN project, a collaboration between Ghent University, the University of Liège, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and the Meise Botanic Gardens, which aims to study the effects of climate change on the diversity and genetic-functional attributes of soil microbiomes in Continental Antarctica

On Thursday 7 May, Dr. Kate Winter from Northumbria University, presented the work she has been doing for the last two seasons at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2020, Europe’s largest annual conference for geoscientists, which was forced to move online this year due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The International Polar Foundation is saddened to hear about the passing of its longtime friend Philippe Bodson on 4 April 2020 due to complications related to COVID-19.

The 2018 Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship Laureate, Dr. Kate Winter of Northumbria University in the UK, spent nearly a month based at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica in January and February 2020 to complete the second of two seasons of research for the BioFe project.

Every year the members of the BELARE team working at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Station must undertake several traverses to assist with the unloading of materials and supplies arriving by ship and bring them back to the station, which is located more than 200 kilometres inland from the coast.

The International Polar Foundation’s outreach activities towards young students through educational Skype classes have always been welcomed with enthusiasm since they were started more than 10 years ago, soon after the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was built.

The Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was recently featured on the Croatian TV show, "Dobro jutro, Hrvatska (Good Morning, Croatia)". A live studio audience listened intently to two members of the International Polar Foundation staff working at the research station.

The scientific teams scheduled to conduct research during the second half of the 2019-2020 season arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on January 13th, and were welcomed to a station in full swing. After following the usually necessary first aid and safety training required of all newcomers to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, researchers from the BioFe, BELAM, and MICROBIAN projects got to work on their respective research objectives for the season.

A long range wireless link has been established connecting the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station to the new Perseus Intercontinental Airstrip - and it runs on renewable solar power!

New Year’s falls right in the middle of the austral summer season for the team at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station. The passing from one year to the next serves as a divide between the first and second halves of the season.