Gregory Tschebotarioff was born on February 15, 1899, in Pavlovsk, Russia to General Porphyry G. Tschebotarioff, of the Cossack Guard Battery, and Valentina Doubiagsky Tschebotarioff. Gregory graduated from the Imperial Law School in Petrograd, Russia in 1916 and served in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I, becoming a third lieutenant. When the Russian Revolution began in 1917, Tschebotarioff served in the Don Army, becoming a second lieutenant, and fought with the White Russians against the Red Army until 1920.

In the 1920s, Tschebotarioff continued his engineering studies, which began in Russia, in Germany, earning his "Diplom-Ingeniuer" degree in 1925 and his "Doktor-Ingenieur" degree in 1952. From 1925 to 1929, Tschebotarioff took part in structural engineering projects in Paris, Berlin, Bremen, Hamlen, and Cairo. In 1929, he began his specialization in soil mechanics research and foundation engineering, working for the Egyptian Government Service for the next seven years.

Tschebotarioff joined the Princeton University faculty in 1937, eventually becoming a full professor in civil engineering, and married Florence D. Bill of Princeton, New Jersey in 1939. During his tenure organized a soil mechanics laboratory and courses on soil and foundation engineering. While at Princeton, he also organized and oversaw research projects on the effects of vibration on soils for the Civil Aeronautics Administration and helped conduct large-scale model tests on retaining walls, anchored bulkheads, and other waterfront structures for the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Office of Naval Research. Throughout his career, Tschebotarioff published several professional papers on soil mechanics; authored or contributed to books such as Soil Mechanics, Foundations and Earth Structures, Foundations, Retaining & Earth Structures, and Foundation Engineering; and penned an autobiography, Russia My Native Land.

After retiring from his professorship in 1964, Tschebotarioff continued his consulting work at King and Gavaris, Consulting Engineers, which he began in 1955, overseeing soil and foundation work through 1970. He also received numerous awards and accolades for his work throughout his life, which included receiving an honorary "Docteur Honoris Causa" degree in Belgium in 1959, a Karl Terzaghi Award, being named to Sigma Xi, and becoming an Honorary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1977. Gregory Tschebotarioff died on April 21, 1985.

Source:

Lenards, Gerald A. and Peter T. Gavaris. “Tschebotarioff, Gregory P.; ASCE Honorary Member (1899-1985).” American Society of Civil Engineers, 2011. https://archive.ph/20120707171924/http://cedb.asce.org/cgi/WWWdisplay.cgi#selection-739.25-739.60.