DoctorUrsula Rack

I am a Polar Historian with an interest for social and environmental history. The international aspect of that research focuses also on political and economic factors which are heavily influencing expeditions. I also research and teach history of science with a focus on the Antarctic.
Another aspect in my research is the indigenous as well as the female component in Antarctic history. I extended my studies to include New Zealand scientists from the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958 onward and their involvement in international collaboration in Antarctic science especially with the United States of America. I am collaborating with remote sensing specialists on co-registering digitized maps to high-resolution satellite maps and historic weather patterns. My research requires intensive archival studies based on transcribing, translating, digitising, and interpreting original handwritten documents such as personal accounts, logbooks, correspondence, reports.

I am a recipient of the New Zealand Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship 2018 for the project: Frozen history: How different countries research, collect and communicate their Antarctic history.“ To continue this project with a New Zealand focus on that topic, I received a Harriette Jenkins Award from the Graduate Women New Zealand in 2019.

In 2012 I have been awarded a COMNAP Research Fellowship (Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs) for the project: “Reconstructing historic Antarctic climate data from logbooks and diaries of the Heroic era”. The focus of this project was on the influence that extreme weather events could have on the early explorers, their social interactions and wellbeing, and consequently on the course of an expedition. Subsequently, I have been contracted by NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research) for the Deep South National Science Project E6476 in 2016/17 to examine and interpreting logbooks for historic weather data over the last 200 years. Since 2018, I work as lecturer for Antarctic history and guide on Expedition Cruise ships along the Antarctic Peninsula and the Sub-Antarctic Islands.