Ovsiannikov, Lev Vasilevich

Born Apr. 22, 1919, in Vasil’sursk, Gorky Oblast. Soviet mathematician and engineer. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1964).

Ovsiannikov graduated from Moscow State University in 1941 and the Leningrad Air Force Engineering Academy in 1945. In 1959 he began work at the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; he became assistant director of the Institute of Hydrodynamics in 1970. He was made a professor at the University of Novosibirsk in 1963.

Ovsiannikov’s principal works are on the theory of group properties of differential equations, on transonic gas dynamics, and on the hydrodynamics of flows with free sufaces. His work on the group properties of differential equations created a new line of investigation. Ovsiannikov received the Lenin Prize in 1958, and he has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and several medals.