“I am a native of the USSR, like Georgy Gamow. Moreover, we were both born in Ukraine – he was from Odessa (so was my grandfather), and I am from Kiev, and we built our scientific careers in USA. When I defended my graduate degree and the Ph.D. thesis at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, and even when I left for Germany on the Humboldt scholarship in 1990, it was USSR time. But when one enters the world of science, the boundaries disappear – scientific discoveries are shared by all humanity. It is very important that RASA-America includes scientists from the former Soviet Union, regardless of their nationality and political views. My compatriot Igor Sikorsky built his helicopter in the USA, but my alma mater in Kiev (KPI) bears his name. I am currently participating in the European project with colleagues from Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus. Over the years, my research group had graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from Ukraine, Armenia, Russia and Kazakhstan (as well as over 20 other countries). I believe in the unifying power of science! ” -Yuri Gogotsi
Yuri Gogotsi graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, where he defended his Ph.D. thesis and his doctoral dissertation at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is Distinguished Professor of Materials Science at Drexel University, Director and founder of the Drexel Institute for Nanomaterials. Among his scientific achievements is the development of new methods for synthesis of nanostructured carbons by selective etching of metal carbides and the first microscopic studies of water in carbon nanotubes. He has also contributed to the discovery of two-dimensional transition metal carbides and nitrides (maxenes). He has co-authored over 600 scientific publications and received numerous awards, including Rusnanoprize and the Clarivate Analytics Physics Citation Laureate. He is a Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, many other professional societies, and Deputy Editor of American Chemical Society monthly journal “ACS Nano”.
