Elizabeth L. Kordyum

Career Kordyum began work at the M. G. Kholodny Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1959, and was a junior research fellow at the Academician O. V. Fomin Botanical Garden of Kyiv University.

Starting in 1976 she was the head of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, a position she held until her death in 2024. She was promoted to professor in 1986. From 1998 to 2003, she worked as deputy director for Scientific Affairs, and in 1998-1999, she was acting director of the M. G. Kholodny Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine . From 2004 to 2024, she was vice-president of the Ukrainian Society of Cell Biology.

Research Kordyum is known for her work on the impact of gravity on plants, and the adaptation of plants to microgravity. In her research she used electron microscopy to examine how plants sensed gravity.

Honors and awards In 1979 she received the M.G. Kholodny Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR for her 1979 book Evolutionary cytoembryology of angiosperms. and 2007. In 2020 she was named to the International Astronautical Federation's hall of fame. Kordyum was elected a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in 2000.

Selected publications