Alexandra Elbakyan

Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan (Template:Lang-ru<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>) is a Kazakhstani graduate student,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> computer programmer and the creator of the site Sci-Hub.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The New York Times has compared her to Edward Snowden for leaking information and because she avoids American law by residing in Russia,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and Ars Technica has compared her to Aaron Swartz.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Biography

Elbakyan was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 6 November, 1988.<ref name="VK">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She is of Armenian, Slavic and Asian descent.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Labio" >Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2009 she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the Kazakh National Technical University, specializing in information security.<ref name="NanoBio" >Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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".<ref name="Bohannon-28-April-2016">Template:Cite journal</ref> Following a lawsuit brought in the US by the publisher Elsevier, Elbakyan is presently in hiding due to the risk of extradition.<ref name="JB">Template:Cite journal</ref> 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.<ref name="Bohannon-28-April-2016" /> In December 2016, Nature Publishing Group named Alexandra Elbakyan as one of the 10 people who most mattered in 2016.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

See also

• Peter Sunde
• Lib-Gen

External links

• Engineuring – Elbakyan's blog
• Template:Facebook
• Template:Twitter
• Alexandra Elbakyan on VK