Aleksei Vasil'evich Pogorelov (, ; March 2, 1919 – December 17, 2002), was a Soviet and Ukrainian mathematician. Specialist in the field of convex and differential geometry, geometric PDEs and elastic shells theory, the author of the novel school textbook on geometry and university textbooks on analytical geometry, on differential geometry, and on foundations of geometry. Pogorelov's uniqueness theorem and the Alexandrov–Pogorelov theorem are named after him. Biography Born March 3, 1919, in Korocha, Kursk Governorate (now Belgorod region) in a peasant family. In 1931, because of the collectivization, the parents of Pogorelov escaped from the village to Kharkiv, where his father become a worker at the construction of the Kharkiv tractor plant. In 1935, A.V. Pogorelov won the first prize at the Mathematical Olympiad in Kharkiv State University. After high school graduation in 1937, he entered the mathematical department of the Kharkiv State University. He was the best student at the department. In 1941, after the involvement of the Soviet Union in the World War II, Aleksei Vasil'evich was sent for 11 months study to N.Y. Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. During his studies, the students periodically were sent for several months to the front as technicians for the airplane service. After the Red Army Victory over Nazi near Moscow, the training continued for a full term. After academy graduation, he worked at N.Y. Zhukovsky Central Aero-hydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) as a design engineer. The desire to complete university education and specialize in geometry professionally led A.V. Pogorelov to Moscow State University. By recommendation of I.G. Petrovsky (Dean of the Mechanics and Mathematics Department) and a well-known geometer V.F. Kagan, Aleksei Vasil'evich met A.D. Aleksandrov – the founder of the theory of non-smooth convex surfaces. There were many new questions concerning this theory. Aleksandr Danilovich proposed to give an answer to one of them to A.V. Pogorelov. In a year the problem was solved and A.V. Pogorelov was enrolled to the graduate school of the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University. Nikolai Efimov became his scientific advisor on topics of Aleksandrov theory. After defending his Ph.D. thesis in 1947, he was demobilized and moved to Kharkiv, where he started to work at the Institute of Mathematics of Kharkov State University and the Geometry Department of the university. In 1948 he defended his doctoral thesis. In 1951 he became the Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,