Draft:Victor Varshavsky

Victor Varshavsky, (Виктор Ильич Варшавский), (23 February 1933, Leningrad - 3 January 2005, Tel Aviv) was a prominent Soviet engineer, scientist, Doctor of Technical Sciences, professor. He made significant contributions to many fields of computer science, including threshold logic, probabilistic automata, and asynchronous circuits .

Early years
Due to WWII Varshavsky was evacuated from Leningrad to Barnaul and was there until 1949. In the 9th grade he has been transferred to High school No.203 named after Griboyedov in Leningrad .

Education
In 1956 Varshavsky graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics (now ITMO University), majoring in "Firing control devices". In 1962 he defended his PhD dissertation in threshold logic at Leningrad Institute of Aviation Instrumentation. In 1969 he defended his DSc dissertation (equivalent of Habilitation) in collective behavior of probabilistic automata at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. This research was a continuation of what has been done by Varshavsky's DSc advisor Michael Tsetlin.

Scientific career
From 1956 to 1960, before getting into PhD study, Varshavsky worked at Research Institute of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry in Leningrad as engineer and then as group leader. He started at Design Bureau КБ-4 of the Plant 212, which later was joined with Research Institute НИИ-303 (P.O. box 128 and 536, now CSRI Elektropribor). From 1960 to 1980 he worked at the Computing Center of Leningrad Branch of Mathematical Institute (ВЦ ЛОМИ) of the USSR Academy of Sciences as researcher and then as Head of Department . This computing center was later reorganized into Institute of Socio-Economic Problems (ИСЭП, now Institute of Regional Economic Problems). In 1978, he was on leave for three months to the laboratory of artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. In 1975 he started to teach at the Department of Computer Engineering (Вычислительная техника) at Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute (LETI). In 1980 he got the position of Full Professor at the Department of Computer Science (Математическое обеспечение ЭВМ). Varshavsky was able to take with him to LETI only a part of his team , namely, V. B. Marakhovsky and L. Ya. Rosenblum. In 1988 Varshavsky organized an R&D company "Trassa", which produced CAD tools for synthesis and analysis of asynchronous circuits. This company overcame the collapse of the Soviet Union and existed till 1993, when Varshavsky and a little part of his team started to work in Japan. From 1993 to 2000 he was Full Professor and Head of the Computer Logic Design Laboratory at the University of Aizu, Japan. From 2002 to 2003 he was a Head of the department of logical control at Neural Network Technologies, Bnei-Brak, Israel. From 2003 till his death in 2005 he was a Chief Scientific Officer at Advanced Logic Design Company at Kanazawa University, Japan. Since 1965 Varshavsky was a member of the Commission on the theory of relay devices and finite state machines under the Scientific Council on the Complex Problem of "Cybernetics" of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and since 1985 - member of the Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences on artificial intelligence. For his numerous inventions, some of which have been used for mass-production, Varshavsky has been awarded (in 1980-th) the Honorary Badge “Inventor of the USSR”. In 1988 he has been awarded VDNH gold medal for the best project in microelectronics.

Contribution to cybernetics
Varshavsky is an author and co-author of six books , several book chapters and technical reports , more than 150 papers , and more than 120 USSR author's certificates , USA and Japan patents . He was a Chief Scientific Officer of more than 15 projects in the following areas: system architecture, design of devices based on threshold logic, design of reliable computing devices, hardware support for asynchronous processes, design of VLSI circuits, design of asynchronous circuits, neural networks and fuzzy logic.

Miscellaneous facts
Varshavsky was the champion of Leningrad universities in classical wrestling. He was not a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Family
Varshavsky's father was a science fiction writer Ilya Varshavsky, and his mother was is Luella Varshavskaya (nee Krasnoshchekova), granddaughter of Alexander Krasnoshchyokov, the first chairman of the government, the council of ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Far Eastern Republic. Victor's second cousin was Margarita Kovaleva, the daughter of Rita Rait-Kovaleva. Varshavsky survived by widow Natalya Kravchenko, daughter Elena, and two grandsons Andrey and Ilya.