Dmitri Mendeleev was a Russian chemist born in 1834 who created the periodic table of elements. He organized the known elements into the first recognizable periodic table based on their atomic masses and chemical properties. This allowed elements to be grouped into families with similar behaviors and left gaps for elements not yet discovered. Mendeleev won several awards for his advancements in chemistry, including the Copley Medal in 1905 and the Demidov Prize in 1862. His creation of the periodic table brought order to the study of elements and allowed scientists to predict properties of undiscovered elements.