Abstract :
Life Fellow of the IEEE and founder of the statistical antenna theory, Prof. Yakov Solomonovich Shifrin was born in the town of Mstislavl, Belarus, on April 23, 1920. In 1941, he graduated with honors from the Leningrad State University with a specialty in Physics. Yakov Solomonovich is a man of unbending spirit and morality. He took part in the Second World War. In 1944–1945, he was a commander of radar units. He was the first lecturer on radiolocation with the Sevastopol school of antiaircraft artillery in 1945–1948. The main scientific and pedagogic activity of Yakov Solomonovich was associated with the Artillery Radio Engineering Academy in Kharkov, where he worked from 1948 to 1980. In 1953, he received the degree of candidate of sciences (equivalent of a PhD), and in 1965, he defended a doctoral thesis (DSc). In 1966, he was elected a full professor. From 1951 to 1956, he worked as a lecturer, and from 1956 to 1980, he was Head of the Chair of Antennas and Propagation at this academy. After he retired from the armed forces in 1980, Yakov Solomonovich has been working with the Kharkov National University of Radio Electronics.
