Evgeny Velikhov

Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov (1935 to 2024) was a Russian physicist and scientific leader whose interests covered plasma physics, lasers, controlled nuclear fusion, power engineering and magnetohydrodynamics, and who wrote more than 1500 scientific publications. A graduate of Moscow State University, he joined the Institute of Atomic Energy and discovered the magnetorotational instability in 1959 and the electrothermal instability in 1962. In 1986 he advised Mikhail Gorbachev and helped with the clean up of the Chernobyl disaster. From 1988 he directed the Kurchatov Institute and chaired the international programme of Russia, the United States, the European Union and Japan for the ITER tokamak, and in 2009 he became Chair of the ITER Council. His honours include the Lenin Prize, the State Prize of the Russian Federation and a Hero of Socialist Labour title.