Short Bio

I was born and lived for more than 30 years in Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg), Russia. I enrolled to Physics Department of Ural State Technical University in 1976.  It was kind of branch of  well-known Moscow Fiztech. There I found a lot friends who made these years the best in my life. We never broke our relations, but unfortunately now there are few chances for us to meet again. When we studied physics and mathematics we hoped to work in these fields, but life changed our plans. Now most of my old friends are running their own businesses, and only few continue to work in physics. In May 1999 our department celebrated its 50th anniversary, nearly all my friends gathered together. Regretfully I wasn't able to be there, so I contributed by preparing a short history of our class. You may find it here (in Russian).

Shortly after graduation I married to Lena Polevaya, we have two children - son Simon and daughter Valentina.

In summer 1991 we left Russia to Israel and for more than 8 years we lived in Haifa. I held a postdoc position at the Technion in 1991-93, then worked for two years in a small start-up company Kernel Knowledge, where I developed a symbolic computer algebra software used with Mathematica. You may find my Mathematica packages in MathSource. One performs replacement of variables in ordinary and partial differential equations, another is designed for numerical solution of linear boundary value problems using my modification of the chasing method. The new Mathematica 5 (appeared in 2003) built-in abilities in this field  is based on this package.
Part of my free time I spent playing well-known Soviet quiz game named "Chto?Gde?Kogda?". My team "Neznaika" was one of the best in the Israel league and on the globe, but it ceased to exist in 2004.

In the beginning of 2000 we moved to Illinois, USA, where I've got 2 years postdoc position at the Northwestern University. My work was concentrated on the numerical stability analysis of two-phase hydrodynamic flows. I also discovered a new type of the crystallization processes dynamics.

When my term in Northwestern came to its end, I found a job in a new field and moved to a new place.  I was with Department of Mathematics in UC Davis working on problems of living cell motion. During that time I solved an old number theory problem (posed by Euler in 1748) about a number of solutions of Diophantine equation. My son Simon decided to stay in Chicago, where he is plays solo guitar in the metal band called "Shred".

In September 2007 I moved to Kansas City to join Stowers Institute for Medical Research as Biomathematician.