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Hendrik Huwald is a scientist at the Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (CRYOS) and a lecturer at the Environmental Sciences and Engineering Section at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He developed a numerical model for sea ice and studied energy transfer processes in the Arctic at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ), and in the Alps at the former Environmental Fluid Mechanics laboratory of EPFL. In 2013, he joined the newly founded CRYOS laboratory, where he conducted research in the domains of snow science, hydrology, boundary layer meteorology, and environmental sensing. He has spent several seasons conducting research at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station, studying snow deposition and surface mass balance.

Stefania Gili is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Laboratoire G-Time (Geochemistry: Isotope, Mineral and Element Tracing) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium). Stefania was selected in 2018 for a postdoctoral fellowship to take part in the CHASE (Chemical Characterization of the airborne particles in the Dronning Maud Land area: from the atmosphere to the surface snow) research project funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy (BELSPO), as part of the BRAIN-be (Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks) program.

The International Polar Foundation was deeply saddened to hear of the fatal accident in Greenland that befell Prof. Konrad “Koni” Steffen. Prof. Steffen had been in the north of Greenland conducting field research at Swiss Camp (a meteorological research station he established in the ‘90s) when he passed away on Saturday, August 8th.

Dr Alexander Mangold is a researcher who has been working with the Observations Department at the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (KMI-IRM) since 2005. He manages the institute’s research on aerosols, UV and ozone at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Research Station. He has participated in numerous scientific expeditions to the station in Antarctica.

The last projects he has been involved with include AEROCLOUD (a collaboration between KU Leuven, the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI-IRM0 and the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), CHASE (in partnership with Ghent University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles ULB)) and ACME (a collaboration between the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI-IRM), the International Polar Foundation, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)).

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 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.

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.

The two cooks whose job it is to feed the hungry BELARE team - Christine and Guillaume - offered a glimpse into Christmas traditions and preparations for Christmas Eve Dinner at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.