Valery A. Godyak (born June 8, 1941 in Czernowitz) is a Russian-American physicist who specializes in plasma physics.
As a scientist, he made fundamental contributions to the understanding of radio frequency (RF) induced discharges in plasmas as well as in associated nonlinear phenomena.
In 1972, he joined Lomonosov University as a group leader for gas discharges with radio waves.
In 1980, he was dismissed on political grounds and worked in auxiliaries, for example as an elevator electrician in a Moscow hospital.
[5] In 2004, he received the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics with Noah Hershkowitz for "fundamental contributions to the physics of low temperature plasmas, including radio frequency wave heating, sheath physics, potential profiles, diagnostic probes, and the industrial applications of plasmas".