from the USSR lifted hopes among Westerners that the Helsinki process might finally start yielding progress. US President Jimmy Carter said, "As for Orlov, we're very delighted with this happy occurrence. We would like to meet with him if he comes to this country, but I don't know that he will. I have no way of knowing his plans." On 10 December 1986, Orlov was awarded the Carter–Menil Human Rights Prize of $100,000. In 1987, Orlov began work at Cornell University as a scientist and professor. Orlov was a visiting Fellow at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1988/89. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Orlov studied particle accelerator design, beam interaction analysis and quantum mechanics. He authored and co-authored numerous research papers, articles on human rights, and an autobiography, Dangerous Thoughts (1991). In 1990, Gorbachev restored Soviet citizenship to Orlov and other 23 prominent exiles and emigres who lost the right in the period from 1966 to 1988. Orlov told Gorbachev, "I would say you have a very great power in your hands, the K.G.B., and you should therefore carry out your reforms without fearing anyone at all. Afterward, you should liquidate the K.G.B., because it is a cancer." On 18 July 1991, Orlov and Elena Bonner wrote an open letter about the fact that Soviet army and special troops have been systematically deporting thousands of Armenians from Azerbaijan to Armenia. In 1993, Orlov received American citizenship. In 1995, the American Physical Society awarded him the Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Service. In 2005, he was named the first recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize, awarded biennially by the American Physical Society to honor scientists for exceptional work in promoting human rights. In 2020, a few days before Orlov died, the American Physical Society awarded him the 2021 Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators for his scientific work and for "embodying the spirit of scientific freedom." In 2004, Orlov expressed his opinion about Russia and Vladimir Putin by saying, "Russia is flying backwards in time. Putin is like Stalin, and he speaks in the language of the thug, the mafia." On 24 March 2005, Orlov wrote a letter to Putin to express disquiet over the criminal prosecution of Anna Mikhalchuk, Yuri Samodurov, and Ludmila Vasilovskaya in the case concerning the Sakharov Museum exhibition on religion. Orlov participated in