Efim Pelinovsky

The 2006 Sergey Soloviev Medal is awarded to Efim Pelinovsky in recognition of his world leadership in predicting the consequences of tsunamis and rogue waves, and in the avoidance and mitigation of these severe natural hazards.

Dr. Efim Pelinovsky has contributed significantly to the understanding of tsunamis throughout the seas of the world, providing theories of wave propagation and estimates of wave height and return periods. He has provided leadership in training members of the Russian Tsunami Service and attendees at the European Summer School and Ecole Generaliste d’Ingenieurs in Marseille, and he has convened meetings on extreme waves at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Montreal, the European Geophysical Meeting in Vienna, and at several international conferences in Russia. He follows in the footsteps of S. Soloviev who pioneered some of the aspects of understanding and predicting tsunamis. The scope of his work extends from entire oceans to inland seas, rivers, and even cooling towers for electric power stations. Dr. Pelinovsky is Head of the Laboratory of Hydrophysics and Nonlinear Acoustics at the Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novgorod, Russia.