My Self-Portrait. 1996
I was born in 1974 in Odessa, Ukraine (a Soviet republic at that time). Over the past two centuries, my ancestors have each had different pastimes. They have fished, gone to church, migrated across Eastern Europe (mainly Belorussia, Ukraine, and Russia), supervised railroad stations, coordinated synagogue services, made and repaired shoes, fought in World War II, escaped from German captivity, lived under the Romanian occupation, sat in Soviet labour camps, treated hospital patients, taught mathematics, soldered electrical circuits, played musical instruments, and studied Western literature. All this was constantly interspersed with raising children and quarrelling in the kitchen.
In 1988, my family decided to expand the range of migration: we moved to the United States.
Today, I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at IGB. My wife, Katya, earned her Bachelor's degree in Information and Computer Science from the same University and now works for UCI's Administration and Computing Services Department.