Alexandrov Awarded Ritter Fellowship

Public Lecture at Scripps Explores History of Soviet Oceanography

Around the Pier, February 2008

The history of Russian oceanography during the Cold War was the topic of a public presentation on the campus of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

On Thursday, Feb. 7, at 3 p.m., Dr. Daniel Alexandrov, presented "Soviet Oceanography: From Local Fisheries to Cold War Oceans." The free public presentation was held in Scripps's Sumner Auditorium.

Alexandrov was recognized with Scripps Oceanography's William E. and Mary B. Ritter Memorial Fellowship. The fellowship, which includes research funds and an honorarium, is awarded to a recognized scholar of marine science history and allows the recipient to spend time on the Scripps campus to interact with students and ocean scientists and to give a public presentation. The Ritter Fellowship was created through an endowment from Robert Cody, nephew of the institution's founding director, William Ritter, and the fellowship is named for Ritter and his wife, Mary. This is the tenth time the Ritter Fellowship has been awarded since 1990.

Alexandrov is a professor of sociology in the Higher School of Economics St. Petersburg and in the European University at St. Petersburg. His research focuses on the sociology of science and education, history of science, and environmental history. Among other projects, he is currently involved in research on the sociology of international collaboration.

Alexandrov's presentation covered the history of Russian oceanography, with a focus on specific Soviet culture of oceanography with its large research vessels, long oceanographic voyages, and the romanticized image of oceanography in the eyes of the Soviet public. These long voyages, very different from shorter and much more project-oriented American cruises, created unique social arrangements on board the vessels. Alexandrov discussed how physiologists, anthropologists, linguists, artists, and musicians were frequent participants on these long cruises, and how published accounts of their travels abroad were very popular among Soviet youth.

"I fell in love with marine biology as a Soviet student in the early 1970s, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography was one of the places I always dreamed to visit and work," said Alexandrov. "Though I am a sociologist now, it is a great honor to be receiving the Ritter Fellowship, and to receive such collegial recognition from the institution famous in my former research area which I still miss."

Alexandrov received his Ph.D. in the history of science from the Russian Academy of Sciences and holds an M.S. in biology from St. Petersburg State University. He taught at St. Petersburg State University from 1981-88, and worked in the Institute for the History of Science in Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences, from 1988-1998. During that time, he was also a visiting professor at the University of Chicago (1992) and Georgia Institute of Technology (1994). Since 1996 he taught at the history and sociology departments of the European University at Saint Petersburg, where he became a full-time professor in 1998. Since last summer, his main position has been with the Higher School of Economics St. Petersburg. In recent years, he spent time as a visiting fellow in Max-Planck Institute of History (Goettingen), Max-Planck Institute of History of Science (Berlin), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Paris). In Spring 2004, he received the Eisenhower Fellowship and spent two months in the U.S. studying the university-philanthropy-business nexus.

Shannon Casey