Aleksei Leontiev's life was closely linked to the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU).
In 1966, Leontiev became the first ever Dean of the newly established Faculty of Psychology at the Moscow State University, where he worked until his death in 1979.
[2] Leontiev's early scientific work was done in the framework of Vygotsky's cultural-historical research program and focused on the exploration of the phenomenon of cultural mediation.
Systematic development of the psychological foundations of activity theory was started in the 1930s by Kharkiv group of psychologists headed by Leontiev and included such researchers as Zaporozhets, Galperin, Zinchenko, Bozhovich, Asnin, Lukov, etc.
The core of Leontiev's work is the proposal that we can examine human processes from the perspective of their psychological macrostructure in three interrelated units.