Andrei Fursenko | |
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Minister of Education and Science | |
In office 9 March 2004 – 21 May 2012 |
|
Prime Minister | Vladimir Putin |
Preceded by | Vladimir Filippov |
Succeeded by | Dmitry Livanov |
Personal details | |
Born |
Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Russia) |
17 July 1949
Political party | United Russia |
Signature |
Andrei Aleksandrovich Fursenko (Russian: Андрей Александрович Фурсенко; born 17 July 1949 in Leningrad) is a Russian politician, scientist and businessman. He was the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation from 2004 to 2012.
He is considered to be a member of the Saint Petersburg political groups under Vladimir Putin's presidency.
His father Aleksandr Fursenko (1927–2008) was a renowned historian, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His brother Sergey Fursenko (b. 1954) is a technician, businessman, TV producer and the president of the football club Zenit (St. Petersburg).
Andrei Fursenko entered the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Leningrad State University in 1966 and graduated from there in 1971. In the university he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which he left in August 1991 as it had been banned.
From 1971-1991 he worked in Leningrad at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute as a junior researcher, senior researcher, the chief of the Computer Department (1985–1989), deputy director for science (1987–1991).
He defended his Candidate of Science dissertation in physics in 1978 and his Doctor of Science dissertation in physics in 1990.
In 1990-1991 together with Yuriy Kovalchuk (another deputy director) and Vladimir Yakunin (head of the foreign relations department of the institute) he tried to create a commercial enterprise within the institute that would be engaged in the application of scientific achievements. These plans, however, were opposed by Zhores Alfyorov, director, so that Fursenko, Kovalchuk and Yakunin left their positions in the institute.