Samsonov Memorial International Lecture Series

Professor G.V. Samsonov (1918-1975)

Professor Grigorii Valentinovich Samsonov was born on 15th February 1918 in a town near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). After earning his first degree at the Nonferrous Metals Institute in Moscow, he joined Soviet Navy. At the end of the Second World War, he was stationed in the Soviet occupied zone of Austria. It was here he became intimately connected with the extensive refractory metal and their compounds. After the cessation of the war, Samsonov returned to Moscow and resumed his higher studies and research under the guidance of Professor M. A. Merson (Institute of Steel and Alloys), a noted powder metallurgist of the then USSR. After completion of his Ph.D. degree, Samsonov joined the Institute of Metalkeramika (powder metallurgy) in the Ukrainian Academy of Science at Kiev as a senior scientist. The Institute was later renamed "Institute of Materials Problem". Within few years, he was elevated to the post of Deputy Director. Simultaneously, he was invited to head the Powder Metallurgy Department of Kiev Institute of Technology. Samsonov's scientific activity began with the synthesis of inorganic compounds. Soon he extended his area in the study of structure-properties-processing-performance relations of inorganic materials. By structure he included all types: electronic, atomic, micro- and macro, although the electronic structure fascinated him the most. To achieve this goal he insisted on the crucial bond between chemistry and physics. Samsonov authored nearly 1500 papers and authored/edited 50 books and monographs. One of the seminal books authored by Samsonov is "Configurational Model of Matter". Probably, there is no paper on refractory compounds, where he is not referred. The inorganic compounds in which Professor Samsonov contributed were carbides, nitrides, borides, silicides, germanides, selenides, phosphides, etc. He has also investigated in detail the hard cermets based on refractory compounds. His numerable past students are spread throughout the world.