Yevgeny Landis

Yevgeny Mikhailovich Landis (Russian: Евгений Михайлович Ландис; Kharkiv, Ukraine, October 6, 1921 – December 12, 1997) was a Soviet mathematician, known in the world of computing for devising together with Georgi Adelsón-Velski the first self-balancing binary search tree, the AVL tree.

When Landis was four years old, his family moved to Moscow. Since high school he showed his interest in mathematics. He applied for him to the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Moscow State University, where he was admitted in 1939.

Shortly thereafter he was recruited by the Russian army to fight in World War II, where he was taken prisoner. On several occasions he was injured and suffered severe frostbite, being on the verge of death. In 1945 he was released and returned to the university.

In the 1960s, he worked at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, where he developed the AVL tree. In 1962, together with Gueorgui Adelsón-Velski, he published the article that defined him.