Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia:
I. S. Oblova, Associate Professor, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Oblova_IS@pers.spmi.ru
O. Yu. Gagarina, Senior Lecturer

The article is dedicated to Maria Nikolaevna Kell, an alumnus of the Leningrad Mining Institute and later an associate professor of the Mineral Processing Department, who proved by her own example that lack of significant scientific breakthroughs could be compensated by diligent routine research work, as well as that talent, success and professionalism in technical fields did not depend on gender. She strived towards the research work started by her family, wherein honoured scientists of the Russian Federation, laureates of the Lenin and State Prizes were brought up. The life and work of Maria Nikolaevna Kell was inseparably connected with her alma mater—Leningrad Mining Institute—Russia’s first institute of higher technical education are told about by the documents. Even during the hardest years of the Second World War, she did not stop working being involved in rebuilding the Institute, which had been destroyed during the siege. Kell kept working in her professional field, thereby contributing to the scientific legacy of the Mining Institute in mineral processing. For the long-term and conscientious scientific, and pedagogical activities Maria Nikolaevna Kell was awarded with the medals: For the Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 and For the Defense of Leningrad. Maria Nikolaevna Kell considered honest and dedicated service both to people and the Motherland as her personal duty. Maria Nikolaevna was a good lecturer. Her educational and methodical publications for students increased generations of minerals processing engineers. For more than 50 years of scientific and pedagogical activities at the Mineral Processing Department of the Leningrad Mining Institute, Maria Kell was awarded the honorary titles of the Honoured Worker of Higher School and Veteran of Labour.

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