Leonids Slaucitajs (1899-1971) was born in rural Latvia. In 1918 he served in the Russian Arctic fleet. He returned to independent Latvia in 1920, volunteered for the Latvian navy, and resumed his studies, receiving a mathematics degree from the University of Latvia in 1928, where he began teaching in 1931. In 1936, he came to the United States to study for a year at Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C. In 1940, he assumed directorship of the geophysics and meteorology institute at the University of Latvia; two years later, he received his doctorate in mathematics. In 1944, he fled with his wife, Milda (Hartmans) Slauc t js and their two children to Germany where he taught at Baltic University and worked at the German Sea Observatory. In 1948, they left for La Plata, Argentina, where Slaucitajs directed the geophysics department at the University of La Plata until 1968. He led three expeditions to the Antarctic during that time. Slauc t js pursued avocations in music and painting.