Boris M. Smirnov received his PhD in physics from Leningrad State University in 1968. After working in different research positions, he finally accepted a post as head of one of the divisions of the Institute for High Temperatures at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1986. Professor Smirnov is the author and co-author of approximately 30 books, among them "Physics of Ionized Gases," published in 2001, and "Principles of Statistical Physics" published in 2006 by Wiley-VCH, as well as 300 research articles in plasma physics, atomic physics, and atomic clusters. He is Vice Chairman of