At the 12th European Space Weather Week, which opened in Belgium on Nov. 23, Russian mathematician Tatiana Podladchikova was presented with the International Alexander Chizhevsky Medal for Space Weather and Space Climate.

“We seek to understand the essence of the phenomena that we observe in space because they are intricately connected with our plans on Earth,” said Dr. Podladchikova.

Space weather research is primarily aimed at studying phenomena that can impact space and terrestrial technological systems, as well as threaten the physical well-being of humans. Space weather forecasts are used when planning space missions, predicting equipment  malfunctions, and providing the necessary protection.

Podladchikova helped to develop services that forecast solar activity while working at the Royal Observatory in Belgium. She also helped develop a way to forecast geomagnetic storms with researchers at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; and while at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Moscow she studied the Earth’s magnetosphere.

The Chizhevsky Medal was set up in 2013 to recognize significant contributions to space weather research by those who “have taken unexplored ways, potentially at risk, to reach a successful achievement,” according to the website of the ESWW conference. In the previous two years, the Chizhevsky Medal was awarded to Prof Christina Plainaki (Greece), and Prof Gaël Cessateur (Belgium). The medal was set up to commemorate the pioneering Soviet scientist Alexander Chizhevsky, the founder of Heliobiology, which is the study of links between the Sun and the Earth, and between human beings and space.