Sergei Ermakov

Sergei Mikhailovich Ermakov was born on 9 December 1930 in Luhansk, then in the Ukrainian SSR.

He finished school in 1948 and entered the mathematics and mechanics faculty of Leningrad State University, graduating in 1953. He then took postgraduate studies at the Leningrad branch of the V. A. Steklov Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

After his postgraduate studies Ermakov was assigned to the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering in Obninsk. From 1956 to 1964 he worked there as a researcher and later head of a laboratory that developed methods for calculating nuclear power installations, under the direction of Guri Marchuk, who supervised his candidate dissertation.

In 1966 he was invited back to Leningrad State University to help create its department of programming. He defended his doctoral dissertation in physical and mathematical sciences in 1972. In 1979 he became head of the newly formed department of statistical modelling, a post he held until 2024. From 1979 to 1983 he was vice rector for teaching and research of the university's Peterhof campus, and from 1984 to 1988 he was dean of the mathematics and mechanics faculty.

His research centred on the theory and applications of the Monte Carlo method and the planning of stochastic experiments. He studied the estimation of multidimensional integrals, pseudorandom number generators and probabilistic solutions of linear and nonlinear integral equations, and he was one of the creators of modern methods for calculating radiation shielding. His methods were used for problems in radiation transport, gas dynamics and queueing.

He wrote nine monographs and several textbooks. The Monte Carlo Method and Related Questions, first published in Moscow in 1971, appeared in a second edition in 1975 and was translated into German, Polish, Romanian and other languages. His department organised the St. Petersburg Workshop on Simulation, an international conference first held in 1994.

Ermakov built a well known scientific school. According to Saint Petersburg State University, more than 50 of his students defended candidate dissertations and 12 defended doctoral dissertations. Among them were the German mathematician Wolfgang Wagner and the statistician Anatoly Zhigljavsky, later of Cardiff University. He developed original courses on Monte Carlo theory, supercomputing and experimental design.

Sergei Ermakov died on 30 October 2026 in Saint Petersburg, aged 95. The death was announced by the mathematics and mechanics faculty of Saint Petersburg State University, which described it as an irreplaceable loss for the university community and expressed condolences to his family, colleagues and students. No cause of death was made public.

A farewell was arranged for 12:30 on 6 November 2026 at the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Peterhof.

Ermakov is remembered as a world recognised specialist in stochastic computational methods and the founder of a major school of Monte Carlo and experimental design research in Saint Petersburg. His honours included the USSR State Prize (1979), the first prize of Leningrad State University for his series of works on the theory of the Monte Carlo method, the Order of Honour, the medal In Commemoration of the 300th Anniversary of Saint Petersburg and the badge of Honoured Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation.