1970 was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the Soviet Union. He worked as a tutor at St. Petersburg University, Victor Havin, and then studied in the United States. 1996, Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology, and former doctoral supervisor Nikola makarov. He has worked in Yale University, Max Planck Institute of Mathematics in Bonn, Germany, and Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, USA.

1998, went to the Royal Swedish Institute of Technology in Stockholm to do research. In 2003, he joined the University of Geneva in Switzerland.