Boris Grigoryevich Galerkin (Russian: Бори́с Григо́рьевич Галёркин; March 4 [O.S. February 20, 1871] 1871 – July 12, 1945), born in Polozk, Belarus, Russian Empire was a Russian/Soviet mathematician and anengineer.

Galerkin was born on March 4 [O.S. February 20, 1871] 1871 in Polotsk, Russian Empire, now part of Belarus. His parents owned a house in the town, but the homecraft they made did not bring enough money, so at the age of 12, Boris started working as calligrapher in the court. He had finished school in Polotsk, but still needed the exams from an additional year which granted him the right to continue education at a higher level. He passed those in Minsk in 1893, as an external student. The same year he was enrolled at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute, at the mechanics department. Due to the lack of funds Boris Grigoryevich had to combine studying at the institute with working as a draftsman and giving private lessons. Like many other students, he was involved in political activities, and joined the social-democratic group. In 1899, the year of his graduation from the institute, he became a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Party (future Communist Party). This provides a plausible explanation for his frequent job changes. The first three years after graduation he was an engineer at the Russian Mechanical and Steam-locomotive Union factory in Kharkov, while simultaneously teaching workers in special courses. From the end of 1903 he was an engineer on the construction of the China Far East Railway, half a year later he became the technical head at the 'North mechanical and boiler factory' . He participated in organizing the Union of Engineers in St. Petersburg and, in 1905 he was arrested for organizing a strike among the engineers. In 1906, Boris Grigoryevich became a member of the Social-Democratic Party's St. Petersburg Committee and did not work anywhere else. On August 5 [O.S. July 23] 1906 the police surrounded his house No.13 in Alexeyevskaya Street, not far from Udelnaya railway station and arrested almost everyone of the Committee members. On March 26 [O.S. March 13] 1907, the St. Petersburg Court Chamber passed a sentence, which was surprisingly light, taken into account that at the moment of arrest some of the Committee members fired at policemen. One of the 19 Committee members was imprisoned for two years, 8, including Galerkin (or "Zakhar", according to his underground nickname) - for 1.5 years, others were discharged.

In prison, known under the name "Kresty", Galerkin lost interest to revolutionary activities and devoted himself to science and engineering. He worked as an engineer at designing and constructing the boiler power plant from 1907. He was reluctant to provide details about his revolutionary youth. The main reason for it was that he had been elected to the Committee from the Mensheviks (a Party group with non-radical views, which members later were accused of contra-revolutionary activities and repressed). Galerkin was discharged from prison in the end of 1908. In March, he became a teacher at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute, at the same year his first scientific work was published by the institute's "Transactions". It had been written in the "Kresty" prison. In the summer of 1909 Boris Grigoryevich traveled abroad to visit constructions and buildings which interested him. During the next four years, i.e., before World War I, he visited Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden.

Galerkin taught students at the mechanical department structural mechanics. The lecturer was professor V.L.Kirpichov - a famous scientist in the field of mechanics and the head of the Petersburg mechanical scientific school. However, most members also worked in the Polytechnical Institute. From autumn 1911, Galerkin also worked at the Women's Polytechnical Institute. In 1913 he worked on the design of the metallic frame for a boiler power plant in St. Petersburg - the first building with metallic frame in Russia. Galerkin regularly published his works in the institute's "Transactions", and since 1915 - also in Engineering News. Before 1915 pivot systems were at the center of his scientific interest, later he started researching plates. In 1915 Galerkin published an article, in which he put forward an idea of an approximate method for differential equations, in particular boundary value problems. He had applied his method to a big number of pivot and plate analysis problems. The Galerkin method (or Bubnov-Galerkin method) with Galerkin's (or "weak") differential equation form are known all over the world. Nowadays they provide a foundation for algorithms in the fields of mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, hydrodynamics and many others.

In January 1919, Galerkin became a professor in the 2nd (formerly Women's) Polytechnical Institute, remaining a teacher of structural mechanics in the 1st Polytechnical Institute mechanical department. In March 1920, a chair in structural mechanics was established at the department, and Boris Grigoryevich won it in a competition. In Summer 1921, S.P. Belzetskiy, a famous scientist in the field of structural mechanics and theory of elasticity, who was holding a similar chair at the civil engineering faculty, emigrated to Poland. Galerkin took part in a competition for his chair and in the beginning of 1922 he left the mechanical faculty for the civil engineering faculty.

In December 1923 Galerkin was elected dean of the Polytechnical Institutes civil engineering faculty. It happened during a very important period in the institute's history, when a group of deans resigned from their posts, protesting the intervention of so called "student' representatives", controlled by the trade-unions and the Communist party committees, into the educational process. Galerkin showed to be a talented leader of the faculty. In 1924 - 1929 Galerkin was also a professor in the Railway Engineers Institute and in the St. Petersburg University. In 1924 he made his last trip abroad - he participated in the Congress on applied mechanics in the Netherlands.

In spring 1926 Galerkin learned that Narkompros (Ministry of education) had adopted a decision to close the road-making section at his faculty. This decision was prepared and adopted secretly from the dean by the institute Communist party committee in connection with elimination of parallel specialities. Meanwhile, there were no other faculties in the country, training specialists in the construction of electric railways, urban railways and subways (the faculty had worked on this since 1907). Galerkin managed to cancel this rash decision by Moscow. During Galerkin's deanship, the first laboratory was created. He also managed to receive governmental approval of the idea to built some other big laboratories for the faculty (the Hydrotechnical Research Institute was later established on their base).

In January 1928 Galerkin was appointed as a corresponding member-elect at the USSR Academy of sciences. His candidature was nominated by academicians A.F. Yoffe (Abram Ioffe), A.N. Krylov, P.P. Lazarev. In October 1929 he left the dean's post. By the 1920s, Galerkin was already a world-famous scientist. He had become an authority among engineers-designers. In 1934, Galerkin got two doctoral degrees in technics and mathematics and the title of Honoured Worker in Science and Engineering. In the beginning of 1936 he was elected a member of the USSR Academy of sciences. He also became a member of the highest Certifying Commission in the State Committee on higher technical education, a chairman of the technical mechanics group in the USSR Academy of sciences, the headmaster of the USSR Academy of sciences Institute of Mechanics, the chairman of the Civil engineers scientific society and its Leningrad section.

In the summer of 1941, after the beginning of the war, the Commission on the construction of defensive installations was created by the city government. Some academicians and prominent scientists became members (almost everyone was from the Polytechnical Institute), but only Boris Grigoryevich was involved with construction engineering. Practically he became the supervisor of the work for the Commission. At the same time he was leading the city's department of engineering defence. Later he was evacuated to Moscow, where he joined the military engineering commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Not long after the Great Victory, on July 12, 1945 Galerkin died in Moscow.