MSc. (UNSW) 1955, Bchem (KhPI )1938
Galina completed her undergraduate degree in Industrial Chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1938. After being captured as a prisoner of war in 1942 and taken to Germany, it was discovered she was a scientist, and she was forced to work for Hermann Goring’s project. At the end of the war Galina and her family, who had become displaced persons, resettled in Australia in 1949. Six years later, in 1955, she became the first woman to graduate from UNSW with a master’s degree and the second woman to graduate from the Faculty of Science. She was subsequently offered a role as an Experimental Officer in the division of Physical Chemistry at the CSIRO and later worked within the division of Coal Research at the CSIRO.
