Larissa S. Brizhik did not have to stay. Like many Ukrainian women and children, she could have fled the war zone. But as a department head at the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyiv, responsible for 18 employees, she decided to stay in the job.
At the end of last year, the facility was awarded Dr. Brizhik a one-year scholarship of $165,000. The funds were part of a $1.2 million tranche of grants from the Simons Foundation that was announced on Wednesday. They are expected to help support hundreds of Ukrainian scientists whose work was disrupted by Russia’s invasion of their country last year. The foundation, which is based in New York City and supports many branches of basic research, was endowed by James and Marilyn Simons. Mr. Simons founded Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund also headquartered in New York.
In the case of dr. Brizhik, the money will support 53 researchers at the institute, where physicists study plasmas, elementary particles and astrophysical phenomena.
“It shows that we are not alone – that there are people who care,” said Dr. Brizhik on funding. “That helps a lot,” she added, especially given the tightening of the belt in wartime and the lure of young scientists working abroad. “For those who stay, there aren’t that many options. This is really central for those who stay.”
The Simons Foundation is still reviewing grant applications from Ukraine after extending its deadline after Russian missile strikes cut power and internet access for some scientists.
Numerous leading Ukrainian scientists and their staff and laboratories – a total of 405 specialists and doctoral students – receive support from the Simons Foundation. Recipients include chemists, biologists, physicists and mathematicians.
Over the past half-century, the quality of Ukrainian science has been “extraordinarily high,” said S. James Gates Jr., a professor of physics at the University of Maryland. Last year, Dr. Gates, as former president of the American Physical Society, to organize aid for Ukrainian scientists. dr Gates, who says he received no support from the Simons Foundation, called the grants “an investment in the future.”
He said Ukrainian scientists had done pioneering work Theory of Supersymmetry, which attempts to mathematically unify the known forces of nature and postulates the existence of undiscovered particles. More prosaically, many Western companies involved in pharmaceuticals and computer programming have outsourced tasks to the country’s tech-savvy workforce.
Invading Russian forces, in addition to damage the country’s infrastructure and looting of its cultural antiquitiesdisrupted the work of their scientists and attacked their jobs.
Last March, Russian forces shelled the Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv, damaging a nuclear facility it had been using for research and the production of medical isotopes. His specialists receive $80,400 in grants from Simons.
In October, an exploding Russian missile shattered windows and bent window frames at the Institute of Mathematics, based in a historic 19th-century building in Kyiv. Experts there receive $310,000 in grants.
When the Russians besieged Kyiv last March, Dr. Brizhik, her cat and daughter in a corridor of their apartment to avoid bedroom windows.
“Some days there are up to 10-12 air raid sirens,” she said on her website at the time. “We are lucky – so far our building has not been destroyed.”
dr However, Brizhik decided to stay, not only to preserve Ukrainian science, but also as a symbol of resistance to the invaders.
“I love my country,” she said. “It is important that our army, our soldiers, do not defend empty territory, but people who live here.”
Gregory Gabadadze, dean of science at New York University and a Simons official who has relatives in Ukraine, said the foundation began considering Ukrainian aid shortly after the Russian invasion last February.
“These are highly qualified people,” he said of the recipients. “It’s important to keep their research going so they can pass that knowledge and skills on to the next generation. Once that’s destroyed, it’s almost impossible to rebuild.”
dr Gabadadze said the foundation plans to continue providing annual grants as long as the war lasts, after which it will turn to supporting the reconstruction of Ukrainian science.
