Alex Chernov

Alex Chernov AC KC (born 12 May 1938)[1] is an Australian lawyer, judge and barrister who served as the 28th Governor of Victoria, from 2011 to 2015.

[2] Chernov also served as Vice-President of the Australian Bar Association, from 1986 to 1987, President of the Law Council of Australia, from 1990 to 1991, and the 20th Chancellor of Melbourne University, from 2009 to 2011.

Chernov was born in Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1938 to Russian parents, and migrated with his family to Salzburg, Austria, after the Soviet invasion, where he commenced his schooling.

[4] On the retirement of Dame Marie Bashir as Governor of New South Wales on 1 October 2014, Chernov became the longest-serving governor of an Australian state and by custom assumed the additional office of Administrator of the Commonwealth, which exercises the powers of the Governor-General of Australia in the governor-general's absence or disability.

He was created an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours list for service to the law and education.