Alexander Fersman

Alexander Evgenyevich Fersman (; 8 November 1883 – 20 May 1945) was a prominent Soviet Russian geochemist and mineralogist, and a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1919–1945). Early life and education Fersman was born in St. Petersburg on 8 November 1883, to Evgeny Aleksandrovich Fersman, an architect and soldier, and Maria Eduardovna Kessler, a painter and pianist. He began exploring the countryside for minerals and collecting crystals while a young boy at his family's summer estate in Crimea. After graduating with honors from Odessa Classical Gymnasium in 1901, he attended the Mining Academy at Novorossisk, where he found the mineralogy courses so dull he attempted to switch his studies to Art History. Family friends persuaded him to take chemistry courses instead. In 1903, the senior Fersman's duties as an officer in the army of the Tsar took the family to Moscow, where Alexander enrolled in the University of Moscow. In 1904, he became a doctoral student of mineralogist and geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, who became an important influence on his philosophy and career. In 1907–1909, Fersman began postgraduate work under Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt at Heidelberg University in Germany, and authored a major work on the crystallography of diamond. In 1908, he studied minerals in Elba Island.