Vitalii Semenovych Kurylo (; born 2 February 1957) is a Ukrainian scientist and politician who formerly served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine from 2006 to 2012 and from 2014 to 2019. The first time, he served eighth on the party list of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, while the second time he represented Ukraine's 113th electoral district as an independent member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Early life and educational career Vitalii Semenovych Kurylo was born on 2 February 1957 in the settlement of Bilokurakyne, in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk Oblast. His father Semen Yevhrafovych Kurylo (born 1929) and his mother Anastasiia Arsentiyivna Kurylo (born 1930) died. He is married and has four children: two sons and two daughters. He graduated from the Historical Faculty of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko State Pedagogical Institute in 1982, and in 1974 began his career as a teacher at Bilokurakyne Secondary School. He worked as a teacher in Pidhorivka Secondary School and Starobilsk Secondary School No. 3. From 1983 to 1986, he studied at postgraduate school. At the same time, he worked as an assistant, associate professor, and vice-rector at Luhansk Pedagogical Institute. In 1987, he defended his dissertation on history. From 1996 to 1997, he was head of the Main Department of Education and Science of the Luhansk Oblast State Administration. In July 1997, he became rector of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko State Pedagogical Institute. Under his rectorship, the institute became a classic national university. In 2000, Kurylo defended his doctoral dissertation on the history of teaching, with the topic of "The Formation and Development of Education and Pedagogical Thought of Eastern Ukraine in the Twentieth Century." From 2006 to 2012, he was president of University of Luhansk. Afterwards, he was the rector of the same university until 2014. From April 2021, he was the Acting Rector, Chairman of the Academic Council of the University. Kurylo currently heads the expert council at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine for the defence of dissertations in pedagogical sciences and physical education and sports. Political career Kurylo was first elected as a People's Deputy of Ukraine in the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election. In the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election, he was re-elected. He was again re-elected in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election. He was Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Science and Education in the V-VI convocation and Deputy Chairman of the Committee on State Building and Local