Kuprits Yakov Nikolaevich (1880-1969)

Kuprits (Kupritz) Yakov (Jakov) Nikolaevich (1880, Reval — 1969, Moscow) — specialist in flour-milling technology, Doctor of Technical Sciences (1946), Professor (1938).

Yakov Kuprits graduated from the Riga Polytechnic Institute in 1903.

In 1903–04 he served in the army. From 1904 to 1916 he worked for several engineering firms in Berlin, Dresden, Kyiv, and Kharkiv.

During 1916–17, while in military service (including in the Chemical Committee of the Main Artillery Directorate in Petrograd), he designed gas cylinders and ventilation systems used to repel gas attacks.

In 1918 he resumed work in the field of mill equipment construction in Kharkiv, later becoming head of the Ukrainian mill industry and a board member of the Ukrainian Flour-Milling Trust.

From 1924 to 1930 he served as chief engineer of the state joint-stock company Melstroy.

From 1931 to 1937 — chief engineer of the Soyuzprodmashina trust; from 1937 to 1941 — deputy director for scientific affairs at the All-Union Research Institute of Grain and Its Processing Products (VNIIZ).

He supervised the design and construction of dozens of large industrial mills and was one of the founders of the science of controlling the technological properties of grain.

Honored Scientist and Technologist of the RSFSR (1963).

Winner of the Stalin Prize (1948).

Selected works:

Physical and Chemical Fundamentals of Grain Grinding (Физ.-хим. основы размола зерна ), Moscow, 1946

Technology of Flour-Milling Production (Технология мукомольного произ-ва), Moscow, 1951

Technology of Grain Processing (Технология переработки зерна), Moscow, 1965 (2nd ed., 1977)