Most of his field work was done in Central Asia, Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam.

[1][2] Kurochkin named the new species after his peer Georgi Petrovich Dementyev (1898-1969).

In 2011, Kurochkin and Gareth J. Dyke described Eostrix tsaganica found in Mongolia, the first find of this primitive owl in Asia.

[3] Opposing the theropod origin of modern birds, Kurochkin maintained that archosaurs and dinosaurs were two distinct lineages.

According to Kurochkin, those moderately derived theropods became extinct without leaving any descendants.