Ralitsa Zidarova

Ralitsa is an example for all who want to do science in Bulgaria and aborad. A PhD in botany and a polar explorer, she is a winner of the L’Oréal and UNESCO Women in Science Award and a participant in five expeditions to Antarctica. Ralitsa is dedicated to science, the sea and more specifically to the diatoms that reveal changes in the climate and environment. Her studies and passion began at St. Kliment Ohridski”, where she developed as a scientist.

There she met Prof. Dr. Dobrina Temniskova, who became her scientific supervisor later on. She obtained her master’s and doctoral degrees at the Faculty of Biology and began her expeditions. For Ralitsa, working together with foreign scientists is a great inspiration. One of her greatest achievements was the development of a book about the diatoms of the so-called Antarctic marine zone, an idea she took up with two foreign colleagues back in 2009 and after seven years of hard work, completed and printed. This work was the first of its kind and discovered new species of algae previously unknown.