Interview conducted in April 2022

Culicov Otilia-Ana - PhD in Chemistry, FLNP Deputy Director, Deputy Chief Scientific Secretary of JINR

I arrived in Dubna in 1998. Curiosity and perseverance brought me here. In my last year of study at the university, I participated in a national conference on physics. One of my compatriots responded to my poster work and spoke to me very kindly. Much later, I learned that he was the former Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Romania at JINR. He wondered if I would like to finish my thesis paper at another center where similar research was carried out - JINR. I became interested, but the university administration, having the bitter experience of the harsh1990s, not believing in the possibility of a free exchange of students, did not draw up the required documents. But by fate, I had to come here and a year later, while participating in another conference, I met a Romanian physicist who worked at JINR. He was surprised that I knew about the Joint Institute and I told him about my failed trip. “Do you still want to go there?” “Of course, I want!” He explained that I needed to turn to the Plenipotentiary.
And I did so. I remember that was for the first time I saw the Topical Plan of JINR and was impressed by the varied and ambitious scientific program of the Institute. While I was waiting for a response, the plenipotentiary asked me to help organising a meeting on my research topic. It was unexpected for me, but I cooperated with the Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, where I had started working and thanks to the sense of occasion of my colleagues, we managed to hold a good event. Colleagues from Bucharest, Norway and my future colleagues from FLNP took part in it. Probably, I managed to prove myself well, since I received a positive response to my letter.
In August 1998, I came to Dubna with the desire of further research (I had started in my thesis paper) on environmental media using the nuclear physics methods. I succeeded, I got into the right team and I think I had made the right decision. And I have always set myself only scientific goals and tasks of promoting JINR, first of all, in Romania, I was not going to do administrative work. While still a junior researcher, I tried to organise scientific events in Romania, where I could tell about the whole range of research implemented at our Laboratory and, if possible, at the Joint Institute.
I organised the first school-meeting in 2002 and the next one - in 2007, as a result, I gained a great organisational experience. This all was useful for me later on, because in 2006 I defended my Ph.D. and a year later FLNP Director offered me to become Scientific Secretary of the Laboratory. At first, I took over the experience of the previous scientific secretary and since 2008 I had been completely engaged in this work, moreover the reactor was in the process of upgrade at that time. I can’t say that I easily agreed, a large amount of documents go through the scientific secretary, there is a great responsibility for compiling the annual report in two languages. I was afraid that it would be difficult to master certain subtleties of terminology, but my colleagues helped me and I am grateful to everyone who I worked with and who helped me all these years. I think, without the help of colleagues, my work would not be so effective and productive. To me, I did a pretty good job of this. And then there was a proposal to join the new Directorate of the Laboratory. I am glad that I was offered to keep developing the area in which I was engaged as a scientific secretary and what I had been doing from the very beginning - to enhance the visibility of JINR in the world and establish strong scientific relationships with other centers. I hope, I work successfully and we are moving in the right direction, although there is no limit to perfection.
Unfortunately, there is not as much time left for scientific work as I would like, but this is an obligatory part. On the one hand, this is a favorite part of my work, on the other hand, for non-Russian staff members of the Institute, this is the most important part on which the extension of our contract depends. Today, there are scientometric ways to prove the usefulness for your country: the number of your articles, their citation, the impact factors of your articles and the articles that cite you. I have to report strictly to my institute (National Institute for Research and Development in Electrical Engineering ICPE-CA) and to the plenipotentiary, who considers things a little more broadly, since he also gives "side" work. I give guidance to Romanian students who come to JINR, I do not supervise their scientific work, but deal with all everyday issues and this also takes a lot of time.
I am very pleased that years of our efforts are efficient. Together with the JINR University Centre, it is possible to attract Romanian students to come here to pass their practice and to work. The year 2020, despite the pandemic difficulties, was very successful, six students came to work at the Laboratory - the maximum number in recent years. And what pleases, not all of them are from Bucharest, there are students from Cluj-Napoca, another large student center in Romania. Another achievement, I think, is that we managed to break the molds. If previously cooperation with JINR was mainly focused on FLNP and BLTP, there were certain reasons for this. We were faced with the task of maintaining the old collaboration, to extend and expand cooperation with other Laboratories. We succeeded: at present there are three students at LRB, two students - at DLNP and a student - at BLTP. And of the four graduate students who are today at JINR and are due to defend their theses this year, three of them expressed their wish to return here for a PhD.
If to get back to my scientific work, I am glad to manage to carry it out in future, to cooperate not only with my institute, but also with the University of Bucharest. Also in recent years there has been a very useful collaboration with the National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies and Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. In parallel, cooperation with Serbia develops. And the results are encouraging, so we are going to maintain and develop further collaborations.
Scientific topics are broad-ranging. While together with the institute in Cluj-Napoca we study the impact of nanoparticles on plants, and this can be applied in agriculture, since today various nanoparticles are used in both fertilizers and pesticides, cooperation with Serbia is aimed at studying the bottom deposits of the Danube and its tributaries. This is a very interesting and needful work for Serbia, since the Danube is an essential transport artery in Europe, uniting many countries, yet there is very little data on bottom sediments. There is a European program that tries to somehow monitor the Danube, but this information, unfortunately, is not very open. The Serbian side was very interested in research of sediment samples in their part of the Danube, which they can carry out with our help.
There is interesting research of various geological samples from the territory of Romania along with the University of Bucharest. Together with National Institute for Research and Development in Electrical Engineering ICPE-CA in Bucharest, we managed to develop a complex, unique sample environment device for the DN-12 spectrometer of the IBR-2 facility, which allows to carry out research using neutron scattering under the simultaneous action of three factors: high pressure up to 10 GPa, strong magnetic field up to 5 T and low temperature in the range of 4,2-273 K. This device has successfully passed laboratory tests and will be tested on the beamline in autumn. We will also try to trace the impact of impurities on the properties of carbon materials using Neutron Activation Analysis.
An interesting collaboration with Ovidius University of Constanta is underway, which involves the research of various samples, on the one hand, archaeological ones, all the surroundings of Constanta are just a storehouse of antiquities, on the other hand, if to create new materials, then scientists are very interested in the structure and composition of shells. On the example of their structure, they hope to create new materials for implants - dental, bone. This is a very interesting, advanced and promising topic. And recently, experts from the Romanian city of Tulcea on the Danube turned to me about studying the biota of the river. This is a huge area of research that we cannot cover in its entirety. We decided to focus on shells first, I do hope that this project will expand over time. We have a lot of enthusiasm, but we are limited by the time at the reactor.
Olga TARANTINA,
photo by Tatyana NAGORNAYA