Alexandra Elbakyan
From Kazakhstan Encyclopedia
Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan (Template:Lang-ru[1]) is a Kazakhstani graduate student,[2] computer programmer and the creator of the site Sci-Hub.[3][4] The New York Times has compared her to Edward Snowden for leaking information and because she avoids American law by residing in Russia,[5] and Ars Technica has compared her to Aaron Swartz.[6]
Biography
Elbakyan was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 6 November, 1988.[7][8] She is of Armenian, Slavic and Asian descent.[9] Elbakyan undertook university studies in Astana, where she developed skills in computer hacking. A year working in computer security in Moscow gave her the money to proceed to Freiburg in 2010 to work on a brain-computer interface project, and she developed an interest in transhumanism, which led her to a summer internship at Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States, where she studied "Neuroscience and Consciousness".[10][11][12] In 2009 she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the Kazakh National Technical University, specializing in information security.[13][14]
She began Sci-Hub on her return to Kazakhstan in 2011, characterised by Science as "an awe-inspiring act of altruism or a massive criminal enterprise, depending on whom you ask".[15] Following a lawsuit brought in the US by the publisher Elsevier, Elbakyan is presently in hiding due to the risk of extradition.[16] According to a 2016 interview, her neuroscience research is on hold, but she has enrolled in a history of science master’s program at a “small private university” in an undisclosed location. Her thesis focuses on scientific communication.[15] In December 2016, Nature Publishing Group named Alexandra Elbakyan as one of the 10 people who most mattered in 2016.[17]
See also
References
External links
- Engineuring – Elbakyan's blog
- Template:Facebook
- Template:Twitter
- Alexandra Elbakyan on VK
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