Vasilii Sergeevich Smirnov

Born Dec. 20, 1914 (Jan. 2, 1915), in Petrograd; died Mar. 5, 1973, in Leningrad. Soviet metallurgist; specialist in the pressure working of metals. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1960). Member of the CPSU from 1940.

After graduating from the Urals Industrial Institute in 1937, Smirnov worked at the Verkh-Isetsk Metallurgical Plant. He then combined his engineering work at industrial enterprises in the Urals with scientific and pedagogical activities at the Urals Polytechnic Institute. In 1949 he joined the faculty of the M. I. Kalinin Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, where he became a professor in 1950 and rector in 1956. Smirnov’s principal works dealt with rolling and other plastic-deformation processes. Smirnov was awarded two Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.