Bagrat A. Shainyan (bagrat@irioch.irk.ru) is a Professor of Chemistry and a Chief Researcher (formerly a Head of Laboratory) at the Irkutsk Institute of Chemistry. He was born in Latvija (former USSR) in 1949, graduated from Leningrad (St.-Petersburg) State University, and received his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry in 1977 and his Doctor of Chemistry degree in 1988. The main focuses of his research at different times have been nucleophilic vinylic substitution, the chemistry of triflates, organosilicon chemistry, conformational analysis, reaction mechanisms, and theoretical chemistry. He was a member of the Editorial Boards of the Russ. J. Gen. Chem. and Molecules, as well as the Guest Editor in J. Organomet. Chem. and Molecules. B. A. Shainyan has published more than 400 research papers and more than 20 review papers in various journals, including Chem. Reviews, JACS, JOC, Org. Letters, Organometallics, J. Phys. Chem., Tetrahedron, J. Mol. Struct., Comput.&Theor. Chem., Int. J. Quant. Chem., EurJOC, Asian JOC, Chem. Asian J., Molecules, Int. J. Mol. Sci., etc. He has presented lectures at many conferences on organic, physical organic and  theoretical chemistry in dozens of countries in Europe, North, Central and South America, Great Britain, Israel, Japan, China, etc.