Yuri Berlin received his master's degree in Physics from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1968, studying luminescence of aromatic molecules dissolved in organic liquids. During the period 1968-1974, Berlin worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Chemical Physics, the USSR Academy of Science, and in 1974 completed his PhD studies at the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology under the supervision of Victor Talrose. His thesis was focused on the development of theory for the ion-pair mechanism of radiolysis of non-polar liquids.
Academic career
After completing his PhD, Berlin held numerous research positions at the N. N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he became a senior research fellow under supervision of Vitalii Goldanski and a lecturer in the faculty of Chemical Physics at the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology. In 1986, he was promoted to the position of the group leader and the head of the Laboratory of Non-Linear Physical and Chemical Processes. From 1986 until 1998, Berlin was a member of the Academic Council of the N. N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics. In 2005, he became an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Miller Trust for Radiation Chemistry, UK. He also was an organizer, member of program committee and a co-chair of the Russian-French Seminar on Chemical Physics and a co-chair of the European Science Foundation Conference "Charge Transfer in Biosystems". In 1993-1994 Berlin was invited to teach PhD students and to perform scientific research in the Institute for Molecular Science in Okazaki, Japan. After working in Japan, he held the position of guest professor in Chemical Physics and Biophysics at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Technical University of Munich, Germany. Following his appointment at TUM, Berlin joined the chemistry department of Northwestern University, where he is a research professor. Berlin was a member of the editorial boards of the scientific journals "Russian Chemical Bulletin", "Chemical Physics Report" and a guest editor of "Chemical Physics".
Research
Berlin has undertaken research on a broad range of areas in both physical and theoretical chemistry, involving stochastic dynamics of complex systems, chemical kinetics and transport of active species in condensed phase and in biological molecules, physical chemistry of liquids and solids, theoretical biophysics and physical aspects of prebiotic evolution, physical methods for the initiation of chemical reactions, in particular cryochemistry, radiation chemistry, photo, and high pressure chemistry. His research covers a vast range of fields, such as the theory of excess electrons in non-polar liquids and liquid noble gases, charge transfer under extreme conditions, chemical processes coupled to structural rearrangements of molecular environment, dispersive kinetics, the effects of correlated fluctuations in chemical and biological properties, the role of static and dynamic disorder in the mechanism of chemical processes in condensed media. Later works are focused on mechanism and kinetics of charge transfer and transport in DNA, culminated in a series of studies of various DNA constructs as building blocks of molecular circuitry. Berlin has published over 170 papers in scientific journals.
Honors and awards
Berlin is a member of the New York Academy of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a member of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, an honor Member of the European Molecular Liquids Group, a fellow of the Mendeleev Chemical Society and the Russian Physical Society. His work has earned him many awards, including EU Erasmus Mundus Professorship Award and Scientific Award of Hans Veilberth Foundation, Germany. Most recently, Yuri Berlin was awarded the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Medal in recognition of his distinguished achievements in radiation research as well as the long-lasting and productive cooperation with Polish scientists.
