Shuleikin, Vasilii

Born Jan. 1 (13), 1895, in Moscow; died there Apr. 24, 1979. Soviet geophysicist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946; corresponding member, 1929). Member of the CPSU from 1942.

Shuleikin graduated in 1916 from the Moscow Higher Technical School, where he began teaching in 1918 and was a professor from 1923 to 1929. At the same time, from 1920 to 1931, he worked at the Institute of Physics and Biophysics. Shuleikin founded the Black Sea Hydrophysical Station in Katsiveli and was its director from 1929 to 1941. He also founded (1942) the Marine Hydrophysical Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and served as its director. From 1942 to 1945 he worked for the Hydrographic Survey of the Navy, and from 1945 to 1947, at the A. N. Krylov Naval Academy. Beginning in 1943, he was head of the marine physics subdepartment at Moscow State University, which he had organized. From 1947 to 1950 he was director of the Main Administration of the Hydrometeoro-logical Service of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In 1948 he began working at the Marine Hydrophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, which he had founded, and served as its director from 1948 to 1957.

Shuleikin’s main works deal with the theory of the interaction of the world ocean, the atmosphere, and the continents, the theory of wind-driven waves, ocean currents, and tropical hurricanes. Shuleikin was one of the founders of the Soviet school of marine physics. He wrote the classic monograph Marine Physics (4th ed., Moscow, 1968; State Prize of the USSR, 1942).

Shuleikin was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, three other orders, and various medals.