Chernikov was born on 11 May 1912 in Sergiyev Posad, in Moscow Oblast, Russia, to Nikolai Nikolaevich, a priest, and Anna Alekseevna, a housewife.

[1] He began graduate studies at the Ural Industrial Institute under the outside tutelage of Alexandr G. Kurosh (of the University of Moscow).

[2] A remarkable student, Chernikov was made head of the Ural Mathematics department (1939–1946) immediately after earning his PhD in 1938, even before defending his DSc in 1940.

[3] He went on to be head of mathematical departments at Ural State University (1946–1951), Perm State University (1951–1961), the Steklov Institute of Mathematics (1961–1964), and finally the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine from 1964 until days before his death in 1987.

[3] During his career, he trained more than 40 PhD and 7 DSc students,[3] and published dozens of papers that remained influential 100 years after his birth.