21 May 2013

New MPI Director

Железняк-фото для раздела NewsDr. Mikhail Zhelezniak has taken office as Director of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute, following the formal approval by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nominated by the MPI members, he was elected to the position of MPI Director by the General Assembly of the RAS Siberian Branch on April 25, 2013 for the term of five years.

Born on December 24, 1956 in Sverdlovsk, Mikhail Zhelezniak received his secondary education in School no. 3 in Yakutsk in 1973 and that same year he started work at the Permafrost Institute. In 1975 he entered the Department of Geography, Yakutsk State University, from which he graduated in 1980 with a specialty in geography and teaching. In 1980 Zhelezniak was invited to join the Permafrost Institute where he worked as a senior laboratory assistant, research scientist and senior research scientist until 1995. In 1993 he received the Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences degree in engineering geology, geocryology and geotechnical engineering from the Moscow State University. In 1995, Zhelezniak changed his job to serve as Head of the Permafrost Department at the Faculty of Geological Exploration of the Yakutsk State University. In 2002 he received the Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences from the Melnikov Permafrost Institute. In 2004, Dr. Zhelezniak was invited to the Melnikov Permafrost Institute to take the position of a vice director for science, continuing to serve as a professor and head of department at the Yakutsk State University. From 2009 to 2011, he worked as a principal research scientist and then as head of the Laboratory of Permafrost Geothermics. From 2012 he has served as an acting director of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute. Mikhail Zhelezniak is married and has three children.