School of Natural Resources Seminar\: Jakub Holuša
Abstract
Antarctica is not just a piece of ice and home to penguins. Even though deglaciated/ice-free areas are spread only for over 0.32% of the continent's surface, they contain the most unique terrestrial habitats in Antarctica. The habitats are full of life and enable conducting a research usually not possible in other parts of this icy continent. One of the largest deglaciated area in Antarctica can be found in the northernmost part of James Ross Island, i.e. the place, where the Czech J. G. Mendel Research Station is located. Penguin lovers can be disappointed because of the lack of large colonies of these tuxedo-wearing birds on the island, but if you wait, some of them might appear on a beach in front of the station. Polar scientists, on the other hand, appreciate absence of intensive bad smell coming from these colonies and a chance to study local rocks, landforms, permafrost and mosses or lichens. It is also possible to study trees there, even though they are petrified. Feel free to join the talk and absorb the experiences of a man who spent two austral summers in the most beautiful places on Earth.
Speaker's Bio
Jakub holds a PhD in Physical Geography from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. His research primarily focuses on cold-climate aeolian dunes and their (palaeo-)environmental reconstruction in both past (Czech Republic, Slovakia) and present-day (Iceland, Antarctica) periglacial environments.
Seeking new challenges, he was awarded a Fulbright postdoctoral scholarship in 2026, allowing him to study the largest dune field in the Western Hemisphere, the Nebraska Sand Hills, under the supervision of Paul Hanson. In addition to aeolian research, Jakub has been involved in studies of glacier mass balance, proglacial environmental dynamics, polar soil development and biomedicine in Iceland and Antarctica.
In his free time, Jakub enjoys listening to rock music and cooking. He is a passionate soccer player and also enjoys playing volleyball, cycling, kayaking and hiking.