Personal details. Ukrainian, year of birth 1936, female.

Qualifications. DSc, Professor, Soros Professor 1998; the first Vice-President of Ukrainian Botanical Society; awarded two State Ukrainian Prizes in Science and Technology; winner of the M.G. Kholodny Prize established by Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; Head of the Mycological and Phytopathological Association of Ukraine.

Current position. Head of the Department of Mycology, M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Expertise. Mycology; specialist in the field of systematic and species diversity of different fungal groups, especially terrestrial parasitic fungi (Peronosporales, Hyphomycetes and some others) and fungi inhabiting various water types, including fungal diseases of fish; 323 publications including 22 books (117 of the publications relating to aquatic fungi); Ukrainian Co-ordinator for Darwin Initiative project Fungi of Ukraine. Organizing Committee Chairman for Ukraine's first National Conference on Conservation of Biodiversity, Kaniv, 1997. President of the 14th Congress of European Mycologists.

Languages. Ukrainian, Russian, English (fluent).

Expeditions & fieldwork. Participant in the Royal Geographical Society's first Ralph Brown Expedition (1998) to the Pripyat Marshes of Ukraine; nearly forty years active work, including very extensive field work in Ukraine (Dnieper River, Irpin' River, the lower reaches of the Pripyat, near Chernobyl, flood plains, mountain waters of Crimea and the Carpathians etc. etc.), and major expeditions to the Soviet Far East, Altai, Siberia, Kamchatka and Sakhalin; further collecting experience in Britain and Canada.