Melvin Calvin — chem (nobel / photosyn.) with roots in the Russian Empire
Melvin Calvin was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1961 for discovering the Calvin cycle — the biochemical process by which plants convert CO2 into organic compounds during photosynthesis. His work is foundational to our understanding of how life on Earth sustains itself.
Tracing the roots — Lithuania / Georgia
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1911 to Elias Calvin and Rose Herwitz, both Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Georgia (Russian Empire borderlands), Calvin grew up in the immigrant Jewish community of Detroit. His discovery — made using radioactive carbon-14 to trace the path of carbon through photosynthesis — is one of the most elegant experiments in the history of science.
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Lithuania / Georgia. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.