Born on 2 February 1935 in Moscow, Evgeny Velikhov is a prominent Russian scientist and political adviser who has served under every Russian president since Mikhail Gorbachev. After completing his undergraduate and graduate work in physics at Moscow State University in 1961, Velikhov became a researcher at Moscow’s Kurchatov Institute, where he has spent most of his career and is now president. Specializing in plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear fusion, Velikhov has headed the Soviet/Russian fusion program since 1973. He was one of the initiators of and a key player in the ITER international nuclear reactor program, the planning for which began in the 1980s. Also in the 1980s he chaired a Soviet study group on the US Strategic Defense Initiative and advised then general secretary Gorbachev on SDI and arms control. In 1986 he personally oversaw the cleanup after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, an effort featured in the title of his 2011 autobiography, Strawberries from Chernobyl: My Seventy-Five Years in the Heart of a Turbulent Russia. Velikhov is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for which he served as vice president from 1977 to 1996, and is an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and articles. In 2006 Velikhov was awarded Russia’s Global Energy Prize. (Photo credit: ITER)
