The article gives the main biographic information of the Doctor of Biological Sciences Iya Leonidovna Klevenskaya, who was the initiator and the head of the Laboratory of Soil Microbiology of the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She worked in academic science for 40 years, focusing her research on microbial physiology and ecology in soils of Siberia.