Yuri B. Melnichenko was educated as a physicist in the USSR, receiving his Ph.D. from Kiev State University (1984) and later a prestigious Doctor of Physics and Mathematics degree from the Academy of Sciences of USSR (1992). He is a Humboldt Foundation Fellow (1993, Germany), and a recipient of Max Planck Society award (1994, Germany). Visiting researcher, the Max Planck Institut für Polymerforschung, (Mainz, Germany) in 1993 – 1995. Since 1995 - a research staff member, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He conducts research in the field of soft matter materials and confined fluids using small-angle and quasi-elastic neutron scattering techniques and is an author and co-author of more than 160 peer reviewed scientific articles. Co-Editor of a book "Computational Studies, Nanotechnology, and Solution Thermodynamics of Polymer Systems" (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2001). In 2005 elected a Fellow of American Physical Society for “Significant contribution to the fundamental science underlying universal aspects of macromolecules in polymer solutions, supercritical mixtures and polymer blends”. Most recent interests are in the area of high pressure adsorption and dynamics of fluids confined in pores of engineered and natural porous materials.