Dr. Natalia Shchukina is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) and a senior scientist at the Department of Solar Physics of the Main Astronomical Observatory of NASU.

Her research interests cover several areas of astrophysics, such as multilevel radiative transfer, solar and stellar spectropolarimetry, solar magnetism, helioseismology and quantitative stellar spectroscopy. Dr. Shchukina has been the principal investigator of several NASU research projects and has participated in some space experiments, such as the CORONAS-I and CORONAS-F missions to study solar irradiance fluctuations. She has also been involved in several international organisations, including her activity during 2012-2015 as vice-chair of the "Solar Radiation and Structure" commission of the International Astronomical Union.

In 2005, Dr Shchukina was awarded the MP Barabashov Prize of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for her outstanding studies in stellar physics. In 2018, the President of Ukraine awarded her the Order of Princess Olga for her many years of fruitful scientific activity.

Dr. Shchukina is a member of the POLMAG research group and contributes to the development of several of its work packages. Dr. Shchukina's visit to the IAC aims to make a novel contribution to finding solar radiation observables that are sensitive to the magnetic field, to develop plasma diagnostic techniques capable of inferring the coronal magnetic field from observations, and to publish a series of papers to motivate the development of the necessary instrumentation.