Anastasiia, please introduce yourself.
I’m Anastasiia Chyhareva, a meteorologist and climatologist.
Tell us about your professional and academic career before becoming part of the OCEAN ICE community.
I graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in meteorology. During my bachelor's studies, I focused on cloud and precipitation modeling. For my master's degree, my thesis examined climate change over the Antarctic Peninsula. I later combined these topics in my PhD dissertation titled “Clouds and Precipitation in the Antarctic Peninsula Region: Microphysics, Mesoscale Processes, and Climate Projections to the End of the 21st Century,” which I successfully defended at the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute in February 2024.
I have always made it a priority to expand my knowledge in meteorology through external learning opportunities. During my master's program, I spent six months at Uppsala University as part of the ERASMUS+ KA1 International Credit Mobility program, and I took part in numerous research schools focused on cloud and precipitation modeling and climate change assessment.
What do you do within OCEAN ICE?
As part of the OCEAN ICE project I am working in WP3, my research focuses primarily on extreme precipitation events and their impact on ocean and ice shelf dynamics. My work is divided into two main components. The first involves identifying teleconnections in historical reanalysis datasets. The second focuses on running numerical model simulations for selected extreme precipitation events. These simulations will be partially validated using observational data I collected during the 2025 Antarctic summer field campaign at Vernadsky Station.
What have you enjoyed about OCEAN ICE so far?
I recently joined the OCEAN ICE project through the National Antarctic Scientific Center. Even in this short time, I’ve really enjoyed engaging with the OCEAN ICE community, where researchers bring diverse expertise across a wide range of polar topics. I find these interdisciplinary interactions both stimulating and inspiring, and I believe they have the potential to lead to many valuable outcomes.
Tell us about a skill or trait unique to you that you would like to share?
I would love to share my experience working on field campaigns in Antarctica.
Stay tuned on our social media channels (X, Mastodon, LinkedIn and Bluesky) for more of the series of OCEAN ICE 'Researcher in the Spotlight' articles.