M. A. Tolstykh was born in Moscow on July 18, 1963. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1986 and defended the PhD dissertation as a result of the postgraduate course in this institute in 1989. In 2003, he defended the thesis for the degree of Doctor of Science (Physics and Mathematics). He has been a senior scientific officer (since 1998) and a member of academic boards of the Institute of Numerical Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences (INM RAS) and the Hydrometcentre of Russia and the Dissertation Board of the INM RAS.

Since 1989 he has worked in the Division for Numerical Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (since 1992, INM RAS): a junior scientific officer (1989–1992), scientific officer (1992–1995), senior scientific officer (1995–2004), and leading scientific officer (from 2004). In 1994 and 1996, he worked as a guest researcher in Meteo France National Center of Meteorological Research in Toulouse. In 1995 he underwent the post doc training in the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA, Nancy, France).

Since 2002 he has lectured the special course “Computational Physics” at the Department of Mathematical Modeling of Physical Processes of the Faculty of Physical and Energy Problems in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and since 2005, the special course “Computation Methods of Geophysical Hydrodynamics” at the Department of Computation Technologies and Modeling of the Faculty of Numerical Mathematics and Cybernetics in Lomonosov Moscow State University.

M. A. Tolstykh is the main developer of the PLAV global semi-Lagrangian hydrodynamic model operationally used in the Hydrometcentre of Russia for the medium- and long-range forecasting. He is the author and co-author of more than 80 publications including three monographs and 43 papers in journals.