Saint Petersburg State University - Notable Alumni and Faculty

Notable Alumni and Faculty

Saint Petersburg State University has produced a number of Nobel Prize winners. Both the President Vladimir Putin, and the former President, Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev of Russia are alumni.

Eight of the graduates of the university are Nobel Prize recipients: Ivan Pavlov (Physiology and Medicine, 1904), Ilya Mechnikov (Physiology and Medicine, 1908), Nikolay Semyonov (Chemistry, 1956), Lev Landau (Physics, 1962), Aleksandr Prokhorov (Physics, 1964), Wassily Leontief (Economics, 1973), Leonid Kantorovich (Economics, 1975) and Joseph Brodsky (Literature, 1987). However, none received the prize while working at the university or for the work done while affiliated with it.

Among the renowned scholars affiliated with Leningrad State University have been mathematicians Vladimir Smirnov, Solomon Mikhlin, Yuri Linnik and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, physicist Vladimir Fock, astrophysicist Viktor Ambartsumian, botanists Vladimir Komarov and Vladimir Sukachev, historians Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan, Yevgeny Tarle and Boris Grekov, philologists Lev Shcherba, Vladimir Propp and Viktor Zhirmunsky, orientalists Vasily Struve, Joseph Orbeli and Boris Piotrovsky.

The American novelist Ayn Rand attended the university from 1920 to 1924 graduating with honors in history.

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