Alexander Vilenkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Владимирович Виле́нкин; Ukrainian: Олександр Віленкін; born 13 May 1949) is the Leonard Jane Holmes Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University.

[2][3] A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 260 publications.

[4] As an undergraduate studying physics at the University of Kharkiv, Vilenkin turned down collaborator offer from the KGB, causing him to be blacklisted from pursuing a graduate degree.

[5][6] Then he was drafted into a building brigade and later worked at the state zoo as a night watchman while conducting physics research in his spare time.

His work has been featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles in the United States, Europe, Soviet Union, and Japan, and in many popular books.