I was born in Voronezh, USSR and lived there for 16 years. Then I went to Moscow where I spent the last year of the high school at Kolmogorov Special Boarding School for Physics and Mathematics at Moscow State University (aka "Internat #18").

I became a student at the Physics Department of Moscow State University and got my M.S. in Astrophysics in 1995. I graduated "with honor" - the highest level of academic distinction in ex-USSR.

In 1995-1998 I was a graduate student at the Physics Department of Moscow State University. In 1996-1997 I was as DAAD fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany. I got my Ph.D. in Astrophysics in December 1998 from Moscow State University, my scientific advisor was Prof. G.S. Bisnovatyi-Kogan.

In 1998-2014 I was a permanent staff member at Moscow State University's Sternberg Astronomical Institute.

In 1999-2001 I was a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany.

In 2006-2007 I was a research scientist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheba, Israel.

In 2007- 2011 I was a research scientist at Astronomy Department of University of California Berkeley.

From December 2011 until September 2019 I had been at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, first as a Senior Fellow in the NASA Postdoctoral Program, and since December 2013 as a research scientist.

Since September 2019 I have been an Associate Professor at Janusz Gil Institute of Astronomy of the University of Zielona Góra in Poland.