Ladyzhensky Lev Alexandrovich (1929, Kyiv – December 2004, Boston) -mathematician and human rights activist.

In 1950, Lev Ladyzhensky graduated from the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Kyiv University with a degree in mathematics. He received his PhD in physics and mathematics in 1954. After graduating from university, he worked as a computer scientist at scientific institutions and as a mathematics teacher. From 1953 to 1956, he worked at the Molotov Mining Institute as an assistant and senior lecturer. From 1956 to 1970, he worked at the University of Latvia as a senior lecturer. In 1960, he was one of the founders of the Computing Centre of the University of Latvia, a senior researcher and head of the theoretical research department of the Computing Centre. He was a specialist in the field of functional analysis and developed numerical methods for solving many problems, in particular, problems in the theory of oscillations and diffraction. He taught courses in linear algebra, functional analysis, linear programming, and spectral theory of linear operators to students at the University of Latvia. In 1970, on the tacit initiative of the KGB, he was dismissed from the university. From 1970 to 1973, he headed the laboratory of mathematical methods at the Institute of Fisheries. In December 1973, he was arrested by the KGB on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. The actual reason for his arrest was the storage, reproduction, and distribution of samizdat materials.In February 1974, participants at the International Mathematical Congress in Vancouver sent a letter to the president of the Latvian Academy of Sciences in defence of L., but received no reply. In October 1974, Lev Ladyzhensky was sentenced to three years in a strict regime camp and three years of exile. After returning to Riga, he faced employment problems and in 1980 was forced to emigrate to the United States. Until his retirement in 1998, he worked as a senior consultant at the well-known investment company Standard & Poor's. For more than 50 years, he collected materials about the poet Boris Pasternak. This unique collection contained rare photographs, articles and essays from newspapers and magazines, as well as a documented chronology of the Soviet authorities' growing dissatisfaction with Pasternak. In 2008, it was donated by his family to the University of Southern California and is now available to researchers.