Vadim Petrovich Romanov, a wonderful person and an outstanding scientist, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Professor of Statistical Physics, St. Petersburg State University, Honored Scientist of Russian Federation, member of Editorial Board of the Journal .Nanosystems: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics. passed away on February 1, 2015, at the 78 year of age.

Vadim Petrovich was born on January 8, 1938 in Leningrad. In 1961, he graduated from the Physical Faculty of the Leningrad State University. In the same year he started to work at the Physical Faculty as a junior researcher. Since 1962 he worked as an Assistant Professor and from 1971 as Associate Professor in the Department of General Physics. In the 1975 he was elected Associate Professor at the newly created Department of Statistical Physics. Since 1983 till the end of his life he has worked as a professor of this Department. In 1967 V.P. Romanov defended his PhD thesis, and in 1980 habilitation thesis. In 1983 he was awarded the title of professor in the Department of Statistical Physics.

Professor V.P. Romanov is renowned expert on statistical physics of liquid crystals, the theory of propagation and scattering of electromagnetic and acoustic waves in a strongly inhomogeneous media. He developed the theory of propagation of sound in non-ideal liquid solutions, which explained numerous experimental data on acoustic properties of binary mixtures, and gave new way for investigation of spatial structure of such solutions. Together with the experimentalists, he proposed and successfully implemented a method for extracting of high order contributions in the spectra of light scattering, which provides detailed information about the opalescent systems in the vicinity of second order phase transition. These works open a new opportunities for finding the equations of state for liquid mixtures. Vadim Petrovich developed a theory of interference and correlation effects in strongly inhomogeneous media, which found application in the study of biological objects by optical methods. He published a series of papers on the propagation of light in liquid crystals with a smoothly varying characteristics. These studies are important for the creation of liquid crystal displays of the new generation.

V. P. Romanov published more than 150 scientific papers in the leading Russian and foreign journals. Among them 5 reviews in the journals "Physics-Uspekhi" and "Physics Reports" on modern problems of physics, book "Exercises in Statistical Physics", published by "Nauka" publishing house.

Vadim Petrovich has been repeatedly awarded by the title of "Soros Professor". His research was supported by grants of Russian Foundation of Basic Research, the Government of St. Petersburg, Saint Petersburg State University programs. In the framework of international cooperation, V.P. Romanov organized joint research with Cranfield University in the UK, supported by grants of the Royal Society of Great Britain. In 1996, he received a prize of Saint Petersburg State University for the pedagogical skills, and in 2010 he got the University Award for scientific works. He also was awarded the title "Honored Worker of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation". For a long time professor Romanov was a member of the Academic Council of the SPbSU Faculty of Physics and a member of the scientific committee of this Faculty, in 2013 he became a chairman of the Dissertation Council for doctoral and PhD theses at SPbSU.

V.P. Romanov gave a lot of time and efforts to teaching, work with students and graduate students. Over the years, he read the general course .Statistical physics and thermodynamics. for students of the Faculty of Physics of SPbSU, a number of special courses for students of Statistical Physics Department. Professor Romanov was supervisor of 17 PhD theses and scientific advisor of 4 Doctor of Science dissertations. For his students he always was a real mentor displaying a rare care and kindness.

The bright memory of Vadim Romanov will remain forever in our hearts.