A Pioneering Woman
A 1960s map owned by New Zealand’s first female meteorologist at Scott Base has been returned to Hillary’s TAE/IGY hut during the Trust’s 2025–26 on-Ice season.
Edith’s nephew and Trust supporter Andrew Kemeny donated the map, titled Facilities in the Region of Scott Base, to the Trust last year and visited Antarctica this February with Heritage Expeditions to see it.
“My aunt Edi has been my hero my whole life,” he says. “When she emigrated from Hungary, her qualifications were not recognised in New Zealand so she returned to university to obtain her Masters degree in physics.
In 1951, she joined what is now the NZ Meteorological Service and worked there for 35 years. Her decades of scientific diligence and detailed data collection, particularly studying the ozone layer, helped the world discover the ‘hole in the ozone layer’.
“She gave me her many boxes of archives. I donated the map to the Trust, and items to the Hungarian Geographic Museum in Budapest, where she is honoured as one of four Hungarian female pioneers.”
When Andrew and his wife left for their Antarctic expedition, they were warned weather might limit places they could visit, but they had what Andrew calls a 100 out of ten visit.
“The weather was amazing and people said my aunt was watching over us,” he says. “We anchored 100 metres offshore fromScott Base and visited Hillary’s hut, along with four other explorers’ huts. I was allowed two minutes alone in the radio room where Edi worked. It was a very emotional experience I will always be grateful for.”
Andrew is now editing a video of his visit and re-publishing a book he wrote in 2014 called The Farkas Files, telling the story of the woman known as “The Wizard of Ozone.”
