NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF LATVIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
Press Release
BIO/3114
NEW PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF LATVIA PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
19971103 Biographical NoteThe new Permanent Representative of Latvia, Janis Priedkalns, presented his credentials to Secretary-General Kofi Annan today.
Prior to assuming his current position, Mr. Priedkalns was the Director of the Press Analysis Division of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a lecturer in histology and embryology at the Latvian Academy of Medicine. From 1996 to 1997, he was a Member of the Latvian Parliament (Saeima) and of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Mr. Priedkalns was an Elder Professor of Anatomy and Histology at the University of Adelaide in Australia from 1973 to 1996, and, from 1985 to 1987, he was Dean of the Faculty of Science. In 1972, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Anatomy and Laboratories of Human Reproduction and Reproductive Biology at Harvard University. Prior to that, from 1970 to 1972, he was a Research Fellow in the Department of Anatomy at Cambridge University. In 1969 and 1970, he was a Research Fellow at the Laboratoire d'Histophysiologie du Collège de France in Paris and the Laboratoire d'Anatomie de l'École nationale vétérinaire in Lyon.
Mr. Preidkalns received a Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree from the University of Sydney in 1959, a Ph.D from the University of Minnesota in 1966, and a Master of Arts degree from the Anatomy School of Cambridge University in 1970. His research interests are in neuroendocrinology, and he became a member of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1989 and the Latvian Academy of Sciences in 1994.
Born in Latvia on 28 March 1934, Mr. Preidkalns is married and has six children.
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