Autobiography

                                               by Andrei Petrovich Ershov

I was born in Moscow on April 19, 1931. At that time my father, Piotr Nikolaevich Ershov, was a

postgraduate student, and my mother, Tatiana Konstantinovna Malinina, worked as a teacher. In

1937 my father was assigned to a job at a chemical industrial complex in Rubezhnoe, where all our
family moved. We lived in Rubezhnoe until the April of 1943. During the period since the August
of 1942 to the February of 1943 Rubezhnoe was occupied by Germans. Since the May of 1943 we
lived in Kemerovo, where a part of Rubezhnoe Chemical industrial complex was evacuated to and
later reorganized into Kemerovo aniline dye factory. Father held different posts at this factory and at
present he is a scientific head of the factory’s central laboratory. My mother does not work. My
younger brother Sergei works as a fitter at the Novo-Kemerovo industrial complex..

After leaving school in 1949, I entered the Moscow State University. After graduation in 1954, I
was assigned for postgraduate study in computing mathematics.

Since 1953 I had a part-time job first at the USSR AS Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computing
Techniques and later (since 1954) at the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a
senior laboratory assistant, senior engineer, and junior research fellow. On completion of my
postgraduate study in 1957 I worked at the Computing Center as head of the department of
theoretical programming right up to my transfer to the USSR SBAS.

In the summer of 1957, in response to Academician S.L. Sobolev’s proposal, I decided to move to
the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In the end of 1957 I started working on
organization of the department of programming at the Institute of Mathematics of the USSR SBAS.
Since the April of 1959 I was a part-time head of this department, and since the May of 1960
moved to a full-time status. Since the beginning of 1963, when the Computing Center became a
separate institution, I work there as a department head.

In 1968 I started working on organization of the USSR SBAS Computing Center Design Office in

System Programming. In the April of 1969 I was appointed its scientific director.

Since 1955 I wrote more than 60 papers on various problems of theoretical and applied
programming and adjoining branches of science. In the January of 1962 I proved my PhD thesis,
and in the May of 1967 – my Doctor’s degree thesis.

Since 1956 I am engaged in teaching first at the Moscow University and since 1961 – in
Novosibirsk University. Since 1962 I worked at the latter as an assistant professor and since 1968 –
as a professor.

Since 1958 I frequently visited foreign countries with the purpose of participating in conferences
and congresses, lecturing and working in the International Federation for Information Processing
institutions. I am a member of a number of international and foreign scientific organizations.

In the May of 1967 I was awarded a “Working Red Banner” Order for participation in foundation
and development of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1952 I married Nina Mikhailovna Stepanova, who was then my fellow student. Having graduated
from the Moscow State University in 1955, my wife worked there as a programmer. Now she is a
junior research fellow at the Institute of Mathematics of the USSR SBAS. I have two children – a
son, Vasily, born in 1953 and a daughter, Anna, born in 1959.