Sergey Vladimirovich Krivovichev is at the Department of Crystallography, St Petersburg State University, Russia, which is the city of his birth.  He studied crystallography and mineralogy in this same Department from 1989 to 1994, and was awarded the PhD degree in 1997.  His research work during this time centred upon studies of the structures and crystal chemistry of new materials found in the fumaroles of the Great Fissure Tolbachik eruption.

Professor Krivovichev has also worked as an NSF-NATO Fellow in the Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.  Here, he was able to pursue a very fruitful collaboration with Professor Peter Burns. 

The particular research contributions of Professor Krivovichev are related to new approaches to understanding the structures of large families of minerals (and related synthetic inorganic compounds) on the basis of anion-centred tetrahedra and their connectivity.  These theories have been developed in parallel with numerous new structure determinations of minerals and inorganic compounds.  Sergey Krivovichev has also contributed to other areas of crystal chemistry, including developing a new structural classification of sulphates in collaboration with Frank Hawthorne and Peter Burns, studies of natural and synthetic lead compounds, and of uranyl molybdate minerals which has contributed to a greater understanding of the crystal chemistry of uranium.