She hopes to continue her research in Stockholm

Physicist Lesya Demchenko works at the Technical University of Kyiv. She fled the war in Ukraine with her family and arrived in Nynäshamn on March 16. Photo: Annika Hallman

“I am so grateful to be here, to have this opportunity to continue research, and to be safe”, says Lesya Demchenko, associate professor of physics at the National Technical University of Ukraine in Kyiv.

On March 16, she arrived with her husband and two children by ferry to Nynäshamn after fleeing Ukraine by car via Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Poland, among others.

Now she stands outside the Arrhenius Laboratory at Frescati together with Xiaodong Zou, professor of structural chemistry at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry. Lesya Demchenko worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Xiaodong Zou’s research group at Stockholm University in 2005 and they have had some sporadic contact since then.

When the war broke out in Ukraine, Xiaodong Zou and her husband Sven Hovmöller, professor emeritus at the same department, tried to contact her to see if she needed help. If Lesya and her family managed to get to Sweden, they wanted to try to offer her a lab place so that she could continue with her research.
“Sven, who is a little more on Facebook than I, got in touch with Lesya via Messenger. We then met her and the family in Nynäshamn. You had so little with you”, says Xiaodong Zou.
“Yes, we only brought the most important things, some clothes, documents, my laptop, food and water”, says Lesya.

She has just found out that she has received a research grant of two million SEK from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, which should be enough for 20 months of research.
“It feels fantastic, I long to get started with the research”.

Lesya Demchenko and Xiaodong Zou outside the Arrhenius lab at Frescati. Photo: Annika Hallman

Her research is about studying and developing smart metal-based nanocomposite materials with shape memory, which can be used in a variety of applications, in everything from aircraft to medical instruments and in dentistry.
“It is interesting to research whether the materials can be used for so many different things, they are often more environmentally friendly than the materials available today and therefore the world really needs them”.

Works at the Technical University of Kyiv 

She works at the Technical University of Kyiv where she also teaches students, including how to determine crystal structures of different materials. That the war broke out on February 24 came as a total surprise.
“We lived completely ordinary lives, but suddenly we woke up one day to the awful sound of missiles, flight alarms and screams”.

Lesya and her family live in an apartment on the sixteenth floor of Kyiv and it became dangerous to stay. The first day they stayed in the basement of the house and in a parking garage nearby. It was cold and humid. The family then went to their summer cottage just outside Kyiv, but it also meant that they got closer to the Russian troops, the area was dangerous to stay in.
“We were very scared all the time, we stayed in the cottage for a little over a week and I could not sleep, could not eat, barely drank water”.

Difficult to know when to fly from war

Lesya says that when she has seen films about people in war, she has always wondered why people do not just leave quickly as soon as they can.
“When I myself ended up in such a situation, it was very difficult to know how we would do. We understood that it was dangerous to stay where we were, at the same time we were also afraid to leave, for what might happen on the road”.

Xiaodong Zou hopes that Lesya can start research again as soon as possible.
“So that you do not have to think about the war all the time.”

An application for a residence permit has been submitted to the Swedish Migration Agency and now Lesya is waiting for the application to be approved. She has also applied for other scholarships and an advertised position at the department. If all goes well, she can start working in April.
“We have a good infrastructure and opportunities here at the department and hope to be able to offer our labs and machines. Lesya’s research will also be able to contribute with new perspectives in materials research and I hope that she can use the platforms and networks we have with the industry”, says Xiaodong Zou.

Lesya Demchenko sits in front of the Electron Microscopy Center in the lab at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry. Photo: Annika Hallman

The department has, for example, an Electron Microscopy Center (EMC) that Lesya Demchenko can use in her research.
“We have installed several new electron microscopes which are more modern than what you used when you were here”, says Xiaodong Zou.
Lesya Demchenko recognizes herself on the premises, it feels homely to stay in them.

In parallel with her research in Sweden, she will continue to teach her students in Ukraine online.
“The university building still exists, but it is impossible to be in place, so it is closed. During the pandemic, we learned to work online, so we have tried to continue with that, we benefit from it now.”

Lesya Demchenko worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University in 2005. Here she sits in front of the old microscope.