Rolf M. Sievert. Historical portrait of the Swedish physicist Rolf Maximilian Sievert (1898- 1966). Sievert became an associate professor of medical physics at Stockholm University in the year that he published his doctorate. There he worked on radiation dose management and protection against radiation, advising radiologists and physicians who were regularly exposed to ionising radiation through their work. In 1924 he founded the Physics Laboratory at Radiumhemmet, which developed under his leadership into a world- renowned centre for radiation physics. The Sievert (Sv) was adopted as the S.I. unit for dose equivalent of ionising radiation in 1979.