Dr. Alexei Smirnov was born in Moscow in 1951. He received his Master's degree from Moscow State University in 1974. His Master's thesis was on calculations of fluxes of high energy cosmic neutrinos under the supervision of V. S. Berezinsky. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1979 under the supervision of G. T. Zatsepin and V. S. Berezinsky, and in 1989 he received a Doctor of Mathematical and Physical Sciences degree.
In 1977, he began working as a junior scientific researcher at the Institute for Nuclear Research (INR) of The Russian Academy of Sciences in USSR (Moscow). He joined the department of leptons of high energies and neutrino astrophysics headed by G. T. Zatsepin. From 1982 to 1991 he also taught at Moscow State University. In 1991 he became the leading researcher at INR.
In 1984-85, Dr. Smirnov, together with Prof. Mikheyev, developed the theory of neutrino propagation in matter. In particular, the effects of resonance enhancement of neutrino oscillation and adiabatic conversion in matter with varying density (MSW effect) were identified. The resonance conversion of neutrinos was proposed as a solution of the solar neutrino problem. Since then various applications of the matter effects have been considered.
In 1992, he was invited to ICTP, Trieste, as a staff-associate. From 1997 until the present time he has been a Senior Research Scientist in the high energy group of ICTP. He also maintains his position at INR in The Russian Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Smirnov continues to work on various aspects of neutrino physics and is currently working on the program of reconstruction of the neutrino mass spectrum.
The University of Texas at Austin