Alexander Frumkin
Soviet chemist
Alexander Naumovich Frumkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Нау́мович Фру́мкин; 24 October 1895 – 27 May 1976) was a Soviet Russian electrochemist, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1932, founder of the Russian Journal of Electrochemistry Elektrokhimiya and receiver of the Hero of Socialist Labor award. The Russian Academy of Sciences' A.N. Frumkin Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry is named after him.
Biography
Early life
Frumkin was born in Kishinev, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Moldova) to a Jewish family; his father was an insurance salesman. His family moved to Odessa, where he received his primary schooling; he continued his education in Strasbourg, and then at the University of Bern. Frumkin's first published articles appeared in 1914, when he was only 19; in 1915, he received his first degree, back in Odessa. Two years later, the seminal article "Electrocapillary Phenomena and Electrode Potentials" was published.
Frumkin moved to Moscow in 1922 to work at the Karpov Institute, under A.N. Bakh. In 1930, Frumkin joined the faculty of Moscow University, where in 1933 he founded—and would head until his death—the department of electrochemistry.
Frumkin was married three times, including a brief first marriage to Vera Inber.
Scientific career
During the Second World War, Frumkin led a large team of scientists and engineers involved in defense issues.
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