Valery Legasov

Valery Alekseyevich Legasov (Russian: Валерий Алексеевич Легасов; September 1, 1936 – April 27, 1988) was a Soviet inorganic chemist and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He is now mainly remembered for his work as the chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster. 2Biography Legasov was born on September 1, 1936, in Tula, Russian SFSR into a family of civil workers. He attended secondary school in Kursk. In 1949–1954, he attended School No. 56 in Moscow and graduated with a gold medal. The school now bears his name, and his bronze bust stands at the entrance. He married Margarita Mikhailovna and had a daughter Inga Legasova.In 1961, he graduated from the Faculty of Physicochemical Engineering at the Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology. He worked as secretary of the Komsomol Committee of the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology.In 1962, he joined the graduate school in the Department of Molecular Physics of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, first as a junior then senior researcher, and finally as head of the laboratory. In 1967, he defended his thesis at the Kurchatov Institute, under the supervisor Isaac Kikoin, on the synthesis of compounds of noble gases and the study of their properties. He received the degree of candidate in 1967 and his doctorate in chemistry in 1972.In 1976, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.From 1978–1983, he was a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.In 1981, he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in the Department of Physical Chemistry and Technology of Inorganic Materials.From 1983 until his death, he worked as chair of the department of Radiochemistry and Chemical Technology at the Faculty of Chemistry at Moscow State Universit