The Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (BINP) is one of the major centers of advanced study of nuclear physics in Russia. It is located in the Siberian town Akademgorodok and was founded by Gersh Budker in 1959. Gersh Budker, also named Andrey Mikhailovich Budker, was a Soviet nuclear physicist. He was appointed Corresponding Member of the Siberian branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences on March 28, 1958, and was made an Academician of the division of nuclear physics on June 26, 1964. He is best known for his invention in 1968 of electron cooling, a method of reducing the emittance of particle beams by thermalisation with a co-propagating electron beam. His portrait decorates the famous Round Table room in the institute.