Glebova, Vera Ilinichna

Born Oct. 17 (29), 1885, in Samara; died Dec. 16, 1935, in Moscow. Soviet chemist and mineralogist. Doctor of natural sciences (1913). Member of the Communist Party from 1904.

In 1911, Glebova graduated from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. She took part in both the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Civil War. From 1921 to 1930, Glebova held an executive position in the Supreme Council on the National Economy of the USSR (Vesenkha), and in 1922 she organized the Bureau for the Study and Industrial Application of Rare Elements as part of Vesenkha’s department of science and technology; the bureau was the first scientific research organization for rare elements in the USSR. She also made a great contribution to developing the deposits of rare elements in the eastern regions of the USSR.

In 1925, Glebova became the head of the directorate of the radium industry of Vesenkha’s Central Board of State Industry, and in 1926, she became head of the board’s directorate of the chemical industry. At her initiative the State Scientific Research Institute for Rare Elements of the All-Union Association of Rare Elements and Fine Metallurgy of Vesenkha (Giredmet) was founded in 1931. Glebova served as its director from 1931 to 1934.