Father of electroslag welding who led Ukraine's Academy of Sciences for 58 years
“Science is the essence of my life, and the Academy is not merely my job but my only family.”
Boris Paton presided over the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences for 58 years, from 1962 until his death in 2020. A pioneer of electric welding, he led development of electroslag welding in the 1950s, enabling joints of unlimited thickness that transformed Soviet heavy industry. During WWII he helped accelerate tank production at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant in Gorky. He directed space welding research, producing devices cosmonauts used in orbit, and adapted the technology to medicine with a method for joining living tissues now widely used in surgery. Twice Hero of Socialist Labour and a CPSU Central Committee member, he warned against building the Chernobyl plant near Kyiv and defended Ukrainian scientific autonomy through the Soviet collapse.
Career Timeline
- 1941–1942Engineer, Krasnoye Sormovo Factory, Gorky
- 1942–1953Researcher → Deputy Director, E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute
- 1953–2020Director, E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute
- 1962–2020President, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR / NAS of Ukraine
- 1962–1989Deputy, USSR Supreme Soviet (Deputy Chair, Soviet of the Union 1966–1989)
- 1966–1991Member, CPSU Central Committee