Dr. Evgeny Velikhov

Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, one of Russia’s most renowned scientists, is a leading figure in international security policy. A leading scientist in the field of plasma and thermonuclear controlled fusion, he is the inventor of the high impulse magnetic-hydrodynamic high-power generator used in electromagnetic soundings of the earth’s deep crust. Since the mid 1970s, he has been the head of scientific studies on thermonuclear controlled fusion in the USSR and Russia. From 1977 to 1996, Academician Velikhov served as Vice-President of the Soviet/Russian Academy of Sciences, and in 1986 he personally oversaw the cleanup of the unprecedented nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

For many years, he has been a principal arms control negotiator, making significant contributions to the development of major American-Russia nuclear parity treaties throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Dr. Velikhov has also served as a member of the Russian President's Defence Council and from 1988 to 2006 was Chairman of the Board of ITER, the international program for the creation of the thermonuclear experimental reactor. Today, he is a Council Member of ITER representing Russia, as well as a member of the President's Scientific and Technical Policy Council.

In 2005 Dr. Velikhov was elected Secretary of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation to further President Vladimir Putin’s initiative for the development of civil society in Russia.

In recent years, he has worked tirelessly on fostering Russian-American cooperation in the areas of secure and effective nuclear energy for sustainable development.