Instructors

Course instructors are all staff members of the Invertebrate Zoology Department SPbU with research and teaching experience.

In the city

  • Dr Vadim Khaitov
  • I am marine ecologist and statistician. My scientific work is associated with research of inter- and intraspecific interactions in communities and populations of benthic invertebrates. For more than 20 years I have been teaching marine biology and working at the White Sea. As an instructor, I took part in two international courses for arctic benthos in Svalbard. Thus the diversity of Arctic invertebrates is a part of my toolbox. Apart of marine biology I’m thrilled with statistic analysis of scientific data and I do have extensive experience in teaching this devilish thing 😈 . If you like data analysis and R-language we may have a chat about it… after studying biodiversity!
  • Dr Viktor Starunov
  • My research interests include animals from groups as distant as Polychaeta, Bryozoa, Cnidaria and Trematoda. In any of my projects I first of all see exciting general issues that are relevant to the whole zoology, Recently I have started to go more into bioinformatics, using new resources to answer old questions.
  • Anna Gonchar, PhD candidate (short CV)
  • I have been sampling, doing experiments and teaching field courses at the White Sea since 2010. My own research is about trematodes that are common in marine coastal communities, and their hosts - snails and birds mostly. We look at their life cycles and transmission pathways. Parasites make me look more integrally at the communities and try to understand how all of the members might be connected.
  • Elena Golikova, PhD candidate
  • I am interested in invertebrate zoology and marine biology in general. My specific research is on benthic foraminifera as bioindicators of anthropogenic environmental impact. I study benthic foraminiferal assemblages of high latitudes and ecology of arctic foraminifera, specifically ecology and taxonomy of salt-marsh foraminifera. I also teach practical classes on imvertebrate zoology at our department.
  • Lera Khabibulina, PhD student
  • Lera joins us to tell about cnidarians, a group of her interest and studies for many years already!

At the White Sea

  • Dr Darya Krupenko
  • Darya has extensive experience in teaching invertebrate zoology both in the field and during city classes. Her own research is on comparative morphology of trematodes, along with several other projects.
  • Dr Natalia Shunatova
  • Dr Sergei Korsun
  • Anna Gonchar, PhD candidate
  • Gita Paskerova, PhD candidate (short CV)
  • I am a Senior Lecturer in Invertebrate Zoology. I am mainly interested in parasites, especially unicellular parasites of marine invertebrates. My research focuses on the biodiversity of sporozoans (Apicomplexa: Sporozoa) and their parasitism strategies. I also pay attention to microsporidia of the family Metchnikovellidae, hyperparasites of many gregarines from marine invertebrates. Metchnikovellides are thought to be a ‘key group' to understand the evolution and phylogeny of microsporidia in whole. My other interest is echinoderms (Deuterostomia: Echinodermata): their diversity, morphology, biology, ecology, and the phylogenetic relations with other deuterostomes.
  • Olga Kotenko, PhD candidate (short CV)
  • I’m a zoologist interested in exploring the early development of various marine invertebrates to understand the origin of their morphology. I am enchanted with bryozoans and intrigued by one of the interesting questions in bryozoan life history evolution: what did the bryozoan larva look like at the beginning of bryozoan history and how their diversity comes into existence? Mostly I work with the larvae of marine bryozoans with a focus on their general anatomy and ultrastructure.
  • Since 2012 I have been diving in the White Sea and use scientific diving in the research and educational projects. I’m deeply impressed by the astonishing beauty of the underwater life and lots of marvelous habitats in the White Sea.