October 29, 2018

Mikhail Zhelezniak appointed to second term as MPI Director

The Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education has appointed Mikhail Zhelezniak for a second term as MPI director from October 23, 2018 to December 24, 2021. The appointment formally recognizes the result of elections held at the MPI general meeting on May 31, 2018, where Dr. Zhelezniak won the position by a majority vote.

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. On April 25, 2013, Dr. Zhelezniak was elected by the General Assembly of the RAS Siberian Branch to the position of MPI Director for the term of five years.