I had graduated (MSc in Astronomy with honors) from the Leningrad State University in 1983 (the University was renamed to the Saint-Petersburg State University eight years later, following the restoration of my birth city's original name). Soon after the graduation, I began to work as a research associate at the University's Astronomical Observatory. In the 1990s, the Observatory itself was transformed into the Sobolev Astronomical Institute. During a period from 1994 till 2002, I was also being employed as a part-time associate professor by the University's Department of Astronomy to teach theoretical physics.
From September 1992 till February 1994 and during a 6 month period in 1998, I was working at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching (Germany). The work was supported by a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. From 1994 till 2001, I continued to come visit the MPA for nearly two months every year. I was working with Dr. Achim Weiss on various theoretical problems related to extra mixing in low-mass red giants and chemical composition anomalies in globular-cluster stars.
In 1997, Prof. John Norris received an ARC grant to support my work with him and Dr. Gary Da Costa at the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra (Australia). During that three month business trip Down Under, I also got acquainted with Prof. John Lattanzio and Dr. Chris Tout while visiting them at the Monash University to discuss results of my work and our possible future collaboration. As a result, Chris invited me to work with him at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (UK) in 1999 and 2001 for a total period of six months. We investigated rotation-driven instabilities and internal gravity waves as possible mechanisms for extra mixing in both globular-cluster red giants and low-mass asymptotic giant branch stars.
In 2002, I came to Canada to begin my work as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Don VandenBerg at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Victoria. Here, I also met and wrote a couple of papers with Dr. Falk Herwig.
After two years in Victoria, I moved to Hanover (New Hampshire, USA). I am grateful to Prof. Brian Chaboyer for giving me the opportunity to work with him as a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Dartmouth College for one year.
In 2005, I took a job as a NASA funded postdoctoral researcher at
the Department of Astronomy of the Ohio State University.
At the OSU, I was working with Profs. Marc Pinsonneault,
Don Terndrup, and Keith MacGregor on mixing and angular momentum transport in low-mass stars
caused by rotation, internal gravity waves, and instabilities of magnetic fields.
Thanks to Don and Falk, I returned to UVic in 2009, where I continue to work as a research associate and a sessional lecturer.