Ekaterina Didenkulova

The International Laboratory of Dynamical Systems and Applications at HSE University–Nizhny Novgorod conducts in-depth theoretical and applied research, including the study of ocean waves, solar corona reconnections, volcanic phenomena, and ship stability. The lab’s researchers, who have received more than 20 significant research grants over the past five years, actively cooperate with Russian and international colleagues from China, Spain, the USA, the UK, Brazil, and other countries. Prof. Olga Pochinka spoke to the HSE News Service about the laboratory’s work.

Mathematicians at HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod and the A.V. Gaponov-Grekhov Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied internal waves generated in the ocean after the explosive eruption of an underwater volcano. The researchers calculated how the waves vary depending on ocean depth and the radius of the explosion source. It turns out that the strongest wave in the first group does not arrive immediately, but after a significant delay. This data can help predict the consequences of eruptions and enable advance preparation for potential threats. The article has been published in Natural Hazards. The research was carried out with support from the Russian Science Foundation (link in Russian).

The Russian Science Foundation has announced the results of the youth contests of the Presidential Programme. HSE University’s early-career researchers are receiving grants for research projects in economics, psychology, sociology, political science, law, mathematics, information science, optics, engineering, and ocean studies.

Imagine a lift that can ascend to the ninth floor and back, all within 12 seconds—this is exactly how an unusually large ocean wave suddenly grows on the ocean’s surface, destroying everything in its path, and then disappears instantly. For her research on these ‘killer’ waves and her development of the theory of nonlinear waves in geophysics, Ekaterina Didenkulova, a senior research fellow of the Laboratory of Topological Methods in Dynamics and an HSE post-doc, was awarded the 2020 EGU Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award in the ‘Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences’ nomination category.