Born in Moscow in 1935, the same year that his father, Nikita Khrushchev, began his political career, young Sergei grew up in Kiev, capital of Ukraine. With the exception of three years (1941 to 1944, during Hitler's occupation of the area), Sergei spent his youth in the Ukraine, where he started to collect butterflies. This began what would remain one of his lifelong hobbies.

In 1958 he completed his studies at the Moscow Electric Power Institute, with a specialization in control systems, and took his first job constructing cruise missiles for the navy. He received a master's degree with distinction from the Moscow Electric Power Institute and also holds his Soviet Doctoral degree from the Ukrainian Academy of Science and a Ph.D. from Moscow Technical University.

Until 1968 he participated in the Soviet missile and space program, including work in cruise missiles for submarines, military and research spacecraft, moon vehicles, and on the "Proton", the world's largest space booster. His involvement in these programs was interrupted in 1968 by the KGB, which had decided that the son of Nikita Khrushchev (ousted as premier in 1964) would not be allowed to participate in secret programs.

From 1968 to 1991, he then served at the Control Computer Institute in Moscow, rising from section head to first deputy director in charge of research. During this period he worked only on "peaceful" projects: control systems for the energy domain, automated measurement systems, and other complex computer systems.

In 1966 Nikita Khrushchev began dictating his memoirs onto tapes. Because others were afraid to assist him, Sergei became the editor of his father's opus. In 1971 the KGB confiscated all the material. Sergei responded by completing the memoirs, which were then published first in English for release in the United States, and subsequently in 15 other languages.

In recent years, Sergei developed from engineer to political scientist, historian, and writer. He collected material about the life of his father and waited for the time when he could continue his work. This became possible only in the era of Gorbachev; his book, Khrushchev on Khrushchev, was published in 1990 in 10 countries. The work deals with the dramatic struggles between Nikita Khrushchev and the KGB regarding the Khrushchev memoirs.

He finished editing the Russian version of his father's complete memoirs in 1991. The completed memoirs, which contain much previously unpublished material, were published in four volumes by the Moscow publishing house "Moscow News."

One of his recent works, Nikita Khrushchev, Crises and Missiles, was published in 1994. In this book he discusses the interrelationships between foreign policy and the arms race from 1953 to 1968, drawing on events that he witnessed during this time. A forthcoming book is "Nikita Khrushchev: Creation of a Superpower," to be published in 2000 in English (USA), Russian and Chinese. He is currently working on translating his Father's 4 volumn complete version of memoirs in English and writing a book about Russian reforms in the 20th century.

From 1989, Dr. Khrushchev has lectured in the fields of Russian economic and political reforms, US-Soviet relations from 1950-64, the history of the Soviet space program, and Nikita Khrushchev's economic, political, and security reforms.

He is a Senior Fellow (since 1996) at the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Institute for International Studies at Brown University, where he also held the position of Senior Visiting Scholar from 1991-1996. In 1990 he was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

As Senior Fellow, he has focused his research on the transition from a centralized to a decentralized society in the former Soviet Union, as well as the transformation from a central to a market economy and international security during the transition. One of his points of interest is the creation of a criminal society in Russia, a consequence of the mistakes in the early stages of market reformation.

He is also interested in the history of the Cold War and its turning point in relations between the USA and the Soviet Union in the Khrushchev, Eisenhower, and Kennedy period. Another focus is the history of Soviet missiles and space development, in which he played an active role, from 1958-68.

Along with his 145 books and articles on engineering and computer science, he is a regular commentator for the American and Pacific media and has published articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post and has been interviewed frequently on national television and radio. Along with other scholars, he contributed a chapter to the book Russia's Future: Disintegration or Consolidation, published in 1994.

Dr. Khrushchev is mentioned in the International Who's Who in the World (2000), Who's Who of Contemporary Achievements (1995-1999), International Authors and Writers (1993-99), and other publications. In the Soviet Union, he received for his research the Lenin Prize, the Prize of the Council of Ministries, the title "Hero of Socialist Labor," several other awards for achievements in space and computer research, and six awards of the Soviet Union Engineering Society. Among others, he is a member of the International Academy of Information (1993) and the Russian Space Academy (1994).

His wife, Valentina, worked at the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union and, at the same time, assisted Sergei in writing. In their free time, Valentina and Sergei enjoy spending time working with trees and flowers in their garden in Rhode Island.

He has three sons: Nikita, the eldest, a psychologist; Ilya, a computer science student; and Sergei, a biologist at Moscow University.