Andrei S. Rapinchuk is a professor in the Mathematics Department
of the University of Virginia. He was born on August 2, 1960 in Minsk
(Belarus). In 1975 he became a student of the Department of Mechanics
and Mathematics of the Byelorussion State University, from which he
graduated in 1980 with an equivalent of Master's Degree in mathematics.
From 1980 to 1995 he held positions of junior (1980-85), senior (1985-91)
and leading (1991-95) research fellow in the Institute of Mathematics of
the Academy of Sciences of Belarus; in 1991-92 he was an acting head of
a research group. In 1982 he received his Candidate Degree in mathematics
(an equivalent of Ph.D). His thesis was on "The number of classes in a genus
and algebraic groups" (advisor - V. P. Platonov). For this work, A. Rapinchuk
was awarded a prize by the League of Young Researchers of Belarus. In 1989
the Department of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR awarded
him a prize for his work on the congruence subgroup problem. In 1990
he received his Doctorate Degree in mathematics (an equivalent of
Habilitation). His Habilitationsschrift was on "The congruence subgroup
problem for algebraic groups." Since 1983 Andrei Rapinchuk simultaneously
held a teaching position at the Byelorussion State University first as
an associate professor, becoming full professor in 1992. In the academic
years 1992-93 and 1993-94, he was a visiting associate professor in the
Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan. In 1994 he was awarded
a research fellowship by the Humboldt Foundation (Germany) and stayed
in the academic year 1994-95 with the University of Bielefeld. He came
to the Department of Mathematics, University of Virginia, in 1995 as a
visiting professor, and accepted an associate professorship in 1996.
In 2000 he was promoted to full professor.
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