Speakers & Moderators

Anastassia graduated from Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (Faculty of Physics and Mechanics, Department of Biophysics), where she was a student of the late Professor Victor Gorshkov. Anastassia earned her Ph.D. in physics of the atmosphere and the ocean from St. Petersburg State University with a study of the global carbon cycle and the role the biosphere plays in its stabilization.


Since 1996, Anastassia has been working in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, where she currently holds the position of Senior Researcher. Anastassia’s research interest is to understand how life maintains itself — to investigate the genetic, ecological, and environmental aspects of life’s persistence on Earth.


Together with Victor Gorshkov, Anastassia worked on the concept of the biotic regulation of the environment. The biotic pump of atmospheric moisture is a key aspect of the biotic regulation concept. Water is crucial for life, so how ecosystems water themselves is central to the understanding of life’s stability on land. Anastassia worked on a number of ecological projects, including “Quantitative Validation of the Necessity of Conservation of Russia’s Undisturbed Ecosystems in the Current Situation of Global Change” and “User-friendly environmental knowledge: Information fluxes in the biosphere and civilization.”


AWARDS 2001-2002 stipend from the Governor of Leningrad District for ecological research; 2004 Young Outstanding Scientists award from the Russian Science Support Foundation; 2008 L’Oreal-UNESCO “Women for Science” prize for Russian scientists.


Anastassia is a member of the Earth System Preservation Group.