Ukraine at the Epicenter of the World Storm: The First Results

Please join the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University for a presentation by Ambassador Yuriy Scherbak.

Yuriy M. Scherbak (Shcherbak) is a Ukrainian writer, screenwriter, publicist, epidemiologist, politician, diplomat, and environmental activist. He is a Doctor of Medicine (1983) and Laureate of the Y. Yanovsky Literary Prize (1984) and the O. Dovzhenko State Prize (1984).

Yuriy Scherbak graduated from Kyiv Medical Institute in 1958. During 1958–1987 he worked in the Kyiv L. Gromashevsky Research Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases as Junior and then Senior Researcher. His PhD (1965) and MD (1983) theses devoted to the epidemiology of especially dangerous infectious diseases. He took part in the fight against epidemics of cholera and other diseases in Ukraine and Uzbekistan, for which he was awarded the Order of Red Banner of Labour (1971).

Yuriy Scherbak is the author of about 100 scientific papers and more than 20 books. His career in literature began in the mid-1950s at the literary association of his medical school.

Public Career

1989–1991 – Deputy of the USSR, Chairman of the sub-Committee on Nuclear Energy and Environment, member of oppositional Interregional Deputy Group headed by Academician Andrei Sakharov

1990–1992 – Chairman of the Green Party of Ukraine

1991–1992 – First environment Minister of independent Ukraine, Member of the National Security Council of Ukraine

1992–1994 – Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Ukraine to Israel

1994–1998 – Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Ukraine to the USA (since 1997 also to Mexico)

1998–2000 – Advisor to the President of Ukraine

2000–2003 – Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada (also Representative of Ukraine at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, Montreal).

Since 12/2009 – Co-founder and Member of the Council on Foreign and Security Policy

2004–2006 – Advisor to the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

Since 2006 – President of the V. Vernadsky Institute for Sustainable Development.