People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Alexei Nikolayevich Krylov Алексей Николаевич Крылов Father of Soviet shipbuilding science who translated Newton's Principia into Russian
- Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov Владимир Леонтьевич Комаров The botanist who led the Soviet Academy of Sciences through the Stalin years
- Nikolai Nilovich Burdenko Николай Нилович Бурденко Founder of Soviet neurosurgery and Chief Surgeon of the Red Army
- Abram Fyodorovich Ioffe Абрам Фёдорович Иоффе The 'Papa Ioffe' who reared all of Soviet physics
- Ivan Pavlovich Bardin Иван Павлович Бардин Father of Soviet ferrous metallurgy who built Kuznetsk
- Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov Николай Иванович Вавилов The geneticist who built the world's largest seed bank and stood against Lysenko
- Vitaly Grigorievich Khlopin Виталий Григорьевич Хлопин The radiochemist who led the Radium Institute and laid the institutional foundations of Soviet nuclear physics
- Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov Сергей Иванович Вавилов The physicist-administrator who led the Academy of Sciences through the early atomic age
- Otto Yulyevich Schmidt Отто Юльевич Шмидт Mathematician who mastered the Arctic through science and built Glavsevmorput
- Boris Mikhailovich Hessen Борис Михайлович Гессен The Marxist historian of science who revealed the socio-economic roots of Newton's mechanics; first dean of MSU physics
- Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa Пётр Леонидович Капица Nobel laureate who discovered superfluidity and refused to work under Beria
- Ivan Dmitriyevich Papanin Иван Дмитриевич Папанин The face of Soviet polar exploration who charted the Arctic from a drifting ice floe
- Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm Игорь Евгеньевич Тамм From the H-bomb to the tokamak: theoretical physicist of two nuclear ages
- Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov Николай Николаевич Семёнов The only Soviet Nobel laureate in Chemistry, founder of chain reaction theory
- Trofim Denisovich Lysenko Трофим Денисович Лысенко The agronomist whose Michurinist agrobiology dominated Soviet biology for three decades
- Lydia Feodosyevna Timashuk Лидия Феодосьевна Тимашук The Kremlin cardiologist whose letter about Zhdanov's ECG became the seed of the Doctors' Plot
- Nikolai Antonovich Dollezhal Николай Антонович Доллежаль Chief designer of Soviet nuclear reactors
- Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov Игорь Васильевич Курчатов Scientific head of the Soviet atomic bomb
- Zinaida Vasilyevna Yershova Зинаида Васильевна Ершова A radiochemist who helped build the Soviet atomic project
- Vasily Alekseevich Makhnev Василий Алексеевич Махнёв An organiser of the secret atomic administration
- Abram Isaakovich Alikhanov Абрам Исаакович Алиханов From heavy-water reactors to the world's largest accelerator: 23-year director of ITEP
- Stepan Afanasyevich Balezin Степан Афанасьевич Балезин Kaftanov's senior assistant who did the day-to-day organizational work that launched the Soviet atomic project
- Yulii Borisovich Khariton Юлий Борисович Харитон Chief designer who led the Soviet nuclear weapons design bureau for 46 years
- Sergei Vasilyevich Kaftanov Сергей Васильевич Кафтанов The GKO science plenipotentiary who pressed Stalin to restart atomic bomb research
- Leonid Mikhailovich Nemenov Леонид Михайлович Неменов The physicist who built an atomic accelerator amid wartime siege
- Konstantin Antonovich Petrzhak Константин Антонович Петржак Co-discoverer of spontaneous fission, a pillar of the Soviet atomic project
- Lev Davidovich Landau Лев Давидович Ландау Soviet theoretical physics titan who founded the 'Landau school' and pioneered quantum fluid dynamics
- Aleksei Mikhailovich Isaev Алексей Михайлович Исаев The engine designer who powered Soviet spacecraft: inventor of the closed-cycle rocket engine
- Isaak Konstantinovich Kikoin Исаак Константинович Кикоин Scientific director of uranium isotope separation for the Soviet atomic bomb
- Vasily Stepanovich Fursov Василий Степанович Фурсов A physicist who linked reactor theory to scientific education
- Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin Кирилл Иванович Щёлкин The physicist who personally armed the first Soviet atomic bomb and built the second nuclear weapons center as its first scientific director
- Georgy Nikolayevich Flyorov Георгий Николаевич Флёров One letter that woke Stalin, one element that bears his name
- Viktor Aleksandrovich Davidenko Виктор Александрович Давиденко A pioneer of two-stage thermonuclear design
- Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich Яков Борисович Зельдович Three-time Hero of Socialist Labor, a self-taught physicist who became the theorist of Soviet nuclear weapons and a giant of cosmology
- Helmut Gröttrup Helmut Gröttrup From Peenemünde to Gorodomlya, the German rocket engineer who designed the conceptual ancestor of the R-7
- Igor Semyonovich Panasyuk Игорь Семёнович Панасюк Kurchatov's closest assistant who ran the F-1 reactor, then denounced his mentor and was sidelined
- Boris Grigorievich Dubovsky Борис Григорьевич Дубовский The physicist who built the dosimetry for F-1's first criticality and founded the Soviet reactor radiation safety system