Stanislav Smirnov — math (fields medal) with roots in the USSR
Stanislav Smirnov is a Russian-Swiss mathematician born in Leningrad who won the Fields Medal in 2010 — mathematics' highest honour — for his work on the mathematical theory of percolation and its connections to statistical physics. He is a professor at the University of Geneva.
Tracing the roots — Leningrad
Born in Leningrad in 1970 and educated at St. Petersburg State University, Smirnov is a product of the Leningrad mathematical tradition — one of the great intellectual lineages of the 20th century. His move to Geneva and his Fields Medal represent the continued global dispersal of Russian mathematical genius into Western European universities.
Leningrad. At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.