Roald Hoffmann is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University.

The Lomonosov Gold Medal, named after Russian scientist and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov, is awarded each year since 1959 for outstanding achievements in the natural sciences and the humanities by the USSR Academy of Sciences and later the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Since 1967, two medals are awarded annually: one to a Russian and one to a foreign scientist. It is the academy's highest accolade.