In 1954, she started her University studies in the Department of Physics of Tartu University where she was to stay until 1974. After graduation (in 1959), she was briefly high school teacher, then in the Institute of Physics of Estonian Academy of Sciences, as a researcher in the Department of Radiation Physics. She was awarded in 1972 the title of Candidate in Physics (that is equivalent to Ph.D.) at Tarty University. In 1974, she started working in the Institute of Geology of Estonian Academy of Sciences shifting from luminescence studies to more applied thermoluminescence Dosimetry and Dating. Her major study in this field was made at the Dating Seminar in Cambridge (1987), it was actually a contribution of physics of luminescence to dosimetry. This is know now as the method of IRSL. It was first received with strong scepticism before becoming a standard method for feldspar TL dating.
In 1986 she became head of the Paleodosimetry Laboratory in the Institute of Geology of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and in 1990 she became Doctor in Physics at Latvian State University (Riga). She had a very important scientific activity with more than 100 articles dealing with other fundamental studies of luminescence of materials and minerals, dating of sediments, accident paleodosimetry… All her achievements above mentioned such as setting up a laboratory of international standard, could be accounted for by the strong resolution of Galina.
Photograph kindly provided by Prof. Raphael Visocekas.