Jonathan Zaccaria

At age 24 Jonathan had his first experience in Antarctica as a scientist at the coastal French Dumont d'Urville Station. Located on the windiest place on Earth (regularly around 200km/h, maximum up to 320 km/h), and bounded by sea ice eight months a year, this is the closest station to an Emperor penguin colony, worldwide advertised by the documentary movie The March of the Penguins. During his time there, he was taking measurements of the ozone layer and UV rate.

A few years later, he made a second overwinter at Concordia Research Station, which is located on the coldest area of the planet, the High Antarctic Plateau and is even more remote than the International Space Station in terms of distance and travel time! Jonathan spent 14 months there with 11 other fellow companions, cut off from the rest of the world and enduring outside temperatures that varied from -25°C in summer to -84°C in winter. While at Concordia he worked as a radio operator, responsible for telecommunications and geophysics instrumentation.

Later on he started working from time to time on polar cruise ships in Antarctica and in the Arctic, taking all positions: lecturer, boat driver, photographer, logistician, kayak guide, and more. Today this is his full-time activity, traveling extensively to Greenland, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Jonathan likes film-making and outdoor activities, speaks French (his mother tongue), English, Italian, Spanish and he is improving his German.