Vera Ivanovna Smolnikova

Vera Ivanovna Smolnikova was a physicist who contributed to Soviet wartime research on radar and communications equipment. She worked at a research institute evacuated from Moscow to Kazan during the German advance. Her team developed improved radio direction-finding equipment used by the Soviet Air Force. After the war she continued her research and eventually emigrated to Britain in the 1970s, joining the University of Nottingham's physics department. She was one of the few women scientists of her era to achieve international recognition.