He said that he began surfing as a child when his parents would drop him off at the beach at Santa Cruz for the summer.

Though the surf is more consistent on the west coast, Gartner has been able to continue surfing while attending Harvard, he said.

He manages to surf year round, despite freezing temperatures and the time commitments of his schoolwork and research.

Gartner said that chemistry actually compliments his love of surfing.

The research is so “independently driven” Gartner said, that “you can work really hard and then when the surf is good, take off.”

Liu, Gartner’s professor, first met him back in 1999, when Liu was a graduate student at Berkeley.

Liu attempted to convince Gartner, whom he had heard was a promising prospective graduate student, to attend Harvard. Liu wrote that he feared Harvard would lose Gartner to the Scripps Research Institute in Claremont, Calif. “in part because the many unique strengths of our chemistry department do not include ideal local surfing (unless you are a penguin perhaps.)”

The press release on the Red Bull Ice Break’s website emphasized Gartner’s mastery of icy east coast surfing.

“Zev Gartner dominated the field with local knowledge, solid surfing and an uncanny ability to withstand the frigid water,” it read.