Renowned chemist and Professor Anatol Zhabotinsky (CHEM), known for his work in nonlinear chemical dynamics, died last Tuesday following a brief battle with lymphoma at the age of 70 after spending 17 years as a researcher at Brandeis. The funeral was held at the Brasco Memorial Center in Waltham last Friday. He is survived by his wife Albina Krinskaia, who chose not to comment.

Zhabotinsky came to Brandeis from Moscow in 1991 as a senior research associate on a grant obtained by Chemistry Department Chair Prof. Irving Epstein, who met Zhabotinsky at a conference in Hungary in 1989.

"I asked [Zhabotinsky] if he had thought of visiting the U.S., and he told me, in his typically ironic way, that it was not possible at the moment because of the political situation-he had apparently been a bit too frank about his views earlier and was only allowed to travel within Eastern Europe," Epstein wrote in a tribute.

Zhabotinsky was granted permission to travel to the United States when the political climate in Russia began to change.

"I think the notion of being able to do one's science free from bureaucratic and ideological constraints was just too tempting to pass up," Epstein wrote.

Zhabotinsky was already famous at this time for his co-discovery of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction with Boris Belousov.

The BZ reaction "is a family of oscillating chemical reactions. . The BZ reaction makes it possible to observe development of complex patterns in time and space by naked eye on a very convenient human time scale of dozens of seconds and space scale of several millimeters," Zhabotinsky wrote in an article for scholarpedia.org.

Epstein wrote in his tribute that Zhabotinsky's papers "ultimately convinced an initially skeptical scientific community that chemical oscillation was not only possible but important."

At Brandeis, Epstein wrote, Zhabotinsky "continued to work on physico-chemical systems, developing new insights into the spatial and temporal behavior of the BZ reaction, even showing that BZ waves obeyed the same laws of refraction, but different laws of reflection, compared to waves of light."

Prof. Milos Dolnik (CHEM), a research colleague of Zhabotinsky's, said in a memorial speech that Zhabotinsky was modest and worked on projects in his lab "just like any other postdoc or graduate student in the group."

His brilliance and expertise, however, were not lost on his colleagues. "He is a historical figure, so it was an odd sensation that he was just a few doors down from me," said postdoctoral fellow Masahiro Toiya (CHEM).

Dolnik called Zhabotinsky not only his friend and colleague but also "a skilled mentor."

In 1992 Zhabotinsky was appointed as a visiting professor in order to keep Epstein's research group running while Epstein served as Brandeis Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Zhabotinsky was reappointed as a professor by University President Jehuda Reinharz and taught advanced courses in physical chemistry. For the past several years he had been a research professor.

Epstein wrote in his speech that Zhabotinsky also collaborated with members of the Brandeis neuroscience program in developing models of synaptic transmission. Prof. John Lisman, who worked with Zhabotinsky on this project, described him as "an amazingly fast learner. He didn't know neuroscience initially, but as he learned more about it, he started to see the implications of his own work on complex systems in chemistry."

Dolnik said that when Zhabotinsky was diagnosed with lymphoma, he did not want "to trouble others with the news about his declining health."

Zhabotinsky was "a wonderful person, colleague and friend, and I'll miss him dearly," Dolnik said in his speech.