March 21] 1865 – February 1, 1920) was a Russian professor, academic, astronomer, and Bolshevik revolutionary of German descent.

Varvara Yakovleva, his future wife, who was a teenage mathematics student in a Moscow women's college, is credited with persuading him to join Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905.

As the only eminent academic apart from Mikhail Pokrovsky to support the Bolshevik Revolution, he played a leading role in forming the new government's policies in higher education.

[3] In January 1918, the provincial commissioner and professor of the Higher Courses for Women, Pavel Sternberg, issued a security certificate to the collection of the State Darwin Museum.

In July 1918, he took part in the preparation and holding of the Meeting of University Workers on the Reform of Higher Education.