Shchukin, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Born July 9 (22), 1900, in St. Petersburg. Soviet scientist in the fields of radio engineering and radiophysics. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1953). Lieutenant general of engineer troops; twice Hero of Socialist Labor. Member of the CPSU from 1944.

In 1927, Shchukin graduated from the Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute, where he taught from 1929 to 1941. From 1933 to 1945 he also taught at the Naval Academy, where he became a professor in 1939 and head of a subdepartment in 1940. During these years, Shchukin also worked at the Central Radio Laboratory (1923–28), the Leningrad Electrophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1928–32), and the Naval Scientific Research Institute of Communications and Telemechanics (1932–38). From 1965 he was deputy chairman and from 1969 chairman of the scientific council on the complex problem of radio wave propagation of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Shchukin is one of the organizers of radar research in the USSR. His main works deal with the propagation of electromagnetic oscillations in various media, the processes of ionization in the earth’s atmosphere, and the effects of such processes on the propagation of radio waves; a large part of Shchukin’s research has been devoted to communications and automatic control and the applications of probability theory in these areas. His course Propagation of Radio Waves, written in 1940, has played a major role in the training of Soviet radio specialists.

Shchukin received the Lenin Prize and the State Prize of the USSR. He has been awarded five Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, two other orders, and various medals.