Andrei Linde was born in Moscow on 2 March 1948. In 1966 - 1971 he studied physics in the Moscow State University. Then he became a graduate student at the Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow. In 1972-1974 he together with David Kirzhnits developed a theory of cosmological phase transitions, which became the subject of his PhD. In 1975 he started his work at the Lebedev Physical Institute, and in 1985 he became a Professor of Physics there. In 1989 he joined the Theory Division at CERN, Switzerland, and in 1990 he became Professor of Physics at Stanford University.

Andrei Linde is one of the authors of the inflationary universe scenario, which is gradually becoming the standard paradigm of modern cosmology. In 1974 he pointed out that the energy density of a homogeneous scalar field plays the role of the vacuum energy density (cosmological constant) in the Einstein equations. In 1976-1978 he has shown that the energy released during the cosmological phase transitions may be sufficient to heat up the universe. These observations became the basic ingredients of the inflationary scenario proposed by Alan Guth in 1981. In 1982 Andrei Linde suggested the new inflationary universe scenario, which resolved some problems of the original model proposed by Guth, while preserving most of its important features. In 1983 he proposed the chaotic inflationary universe scenario, which became the prototype for the new generation of inflationary models. Published in 1986, his theory of an eternal chaotic inflation suggests that our universe is one of many inflationary universes that sprout from an eternal cosmic tree. The model of hybrid inflation which he developed in 1991-1994 became one of the most popular inflationary models in the context of supergravity and string cosmology. In 2003 he together with Kachru, Kallosh and Trivedi developed the first mechanism of vacuum stabilization in string theory. It serves as a basis for all recent attempts to construct realistic models of elementary particle physics, inflationary cosmology and the theory of dark energy based on string theory. At present he continues his work on inflation, creation of matter in the universe, the theory of dark energy, and cosmological consequences of string theory.

Andrei Linde works at Stanford University together with his wife, Professor Renata Kallosh. He has two sons, Dimitri and Alexander. He is an author of more than 220 papers on particle physics, phase transitions and cosmology. He has written two books on inflationary cosmology: "Inflation and Quantum Cosmology" and "Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology". In 1978 he was awarded the Lomonosov prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for the theory of the cosmological phase transitions. In 2001 he was awarded the Oskar Klein medal in physics by the University of Stockholm. In 2002 he was awarded the Dirac medal by ICTP, Italy. In 2004 he was awarded the Peter Gruber Prize. In 2005 he was awarded the Robinson Prize for Cosmology by the Newcastle University, UK. In 2006 he received the medal of the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, France for the development of inflationary cosmology.