site.btaUPDATED Florica Toparceanu Becomes First Romanian Woman Biologist to Study Life on Antarctica

Florica Toparceanu sets foot on Antarctica, becoming the first Romanian woman biologist to study life there. She visited BTA’s National Press Club in Bucharest on Thursday and gave an interview on the occasion of the presentation of the new May issue of LIK magazine entitled Bulgarian Science in Antarctica.

Romania has an old tradition on Antarctica, Toparceanu said. It all started with the first biologist in the world to study life on Antarctica, his name is Emil Rakovita. He is Romanian and was part of the team of the Belgian expedition, the first international scientific expedition to Antarctica. “I, from the distance of 108 years, had the good fortune, and perhaps it is a miracle, to be the second Romanian biologist in Antarctica”, Toparceanu added.

She said her colleague, engineer Teodor Negoita, has had the opportunity to meet Prof. Pimpirev at the very beginning of his work in 1998. "I have only been involved since 2005, when I first participated in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting," Toparceanu added. "Then I witnessed this colossal event - the signing of the memorandum between Romania and Australia. Bulgaria also participated in the event, which took place at the Australian Embassy in Stockholm. Bulgaria too signed a cooperation agreement with Australia. I took the photographs. At that time, I did not know that I would get to Antarctica," she told BTA. 

The cooperation with Bulgaria is also in the field of polar education and in the field of scientific research, she went on to say. "When we came back from Antarctica, we participated in a national project competition. We won three projects - Teodor Negoita won two and I, one - in which we organised the first polar research symposia in Romania. They were with international participation. We had one participant from Bulgaria - Victoria Gesheva, who is researching the biodiversity of Antarctic soil organisms. She participated in all three symposia, representing the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute. This is the scientific cooperation. A book on Antarctic cuisine was also published in Bulgaria, to which different countries contributed data. And we have several pages in that book," Toparceanu said.