Alexander A. Kaminskii received his first (PhD) and second doctor degrees and a full professor diploma in solid-state physics from the Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1965, 1974 and 1981, respectively. Three years prior to and after graduation he worked as a junior scientist on the development of long-wave ruby lasers in the physics department of Moscow State University. In 1961 he joined the quantum electronics laboratory at the Nuclear Physics Institute of Moscow State University headed by Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Alexander M. Prokhorov. Here he began his long and continued basic research on the physics and spectroscopy of rare-earth doped insulating laser crystals. In 1965 he joined the Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he is currently head of the laser crystal physics laboratory. Dr. Kaminskii’s main interests have been concentrated on the search for and the investigation of new generating compounds and the development of new principles and operating schemes for crystalline lasers. He has discovered stimulated emission in more than one-half of all known laser crystals. Among these are many of the more commonly used laser crystals, numerous garnets, disordered fluoride and oxide compounds, families of praseodymium and ytterbium crystals, and several nonlinear compounds for self-frequency doubled and self-stimulated Raman scattering lasers. He has also proposed and developed many new operating schemes for crystalline lasers. Dr. Kaminskii introduced the physical background and pioneered the technique of stimlated-emission spectroscopy of activated crystals. He has authored more than 500 scientific publications on these subjects, including more than 40 review articles and 4 monographs. In 1993 Dr. Kaminskii was the recipient of the Rozhdestvensky Award in optics from the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1994 he received research prizes for senior scientists in solid-state physics and crystalline lasers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany and from the Japapanese Institute for Promising Investigation. In 1994 he was also appointed as a Director of the Joint Open Laboratory for laser crystals and precise laser systems under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Among other activities Dr. Kaminskii has presented many invited lectures and seminars on the physics and spectroscopy of laser crystals at universities and scientific centers worldwide. He has been a member of the organizing committees of numerous Russian and international conferences. Dr. Kaminskii is currently a member of the editorial board for the journals Physica Status Solidi (Germany), Material Science (Poland), and Quantum Electronics (Russia). He is also a member of the Scientific Council on Luminescence of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Optical Society of America, and the European Rare-Earth and Actinide Society, and a corresponding member of the Ettore Majorana International Center for Scientific Culture in Erice (Italy).