ARMENIANS IN SCIENCE
We should all be proud that there are Armenians, Great People of
Sciences.
There are many prominent names in the world
of science that are of Armenian descent.[32]
Some of them
include:
* Hovhannes Adamian
– inventor of the color television * Sergei Adian
– one of
the most prominent soviet mathematicians * Tateos Agekian
– astrophysicist,
one of the pioneers of Stellar Dynamics * Armen Alchian
– economist, one of the
most prominent price theorists of the second half of the 20th century,
a pioneer of new institutional economics and one of the founding
fathers of the “law and economics” school, and in particular what
has come to be known as the property rights approach, among the top
20th-century contributors to economic knowledge * Artem Alikhanian
– one of the founders
of experimental nuclear and cosmic-ray physics in USSR * Abraham
Alikhanov
– one of the founders of nuclear physics in
USSR, founder of the first nuclear reactor of USSR * Sos
Alikhanian – founder of the Soviet school of genetics
and selection of microorganisms * Roger Altounyan
– asthma
researcher, pharmacologist who pioneered use of cromolyn
sodium inhalation therapy for asthma * Viktor Ambartsumian
– one of the founders of theoretical astrophysics * Boris
Ananyev – the outstanding psychologist of 20th century,
founder of anthropological psychology * Apkar Apkarian
– pioneer in
magnetic resonance spectroscopy research of the brain * Stephan
Ariyan – reconstructive surgeon, originator of the
pectoralis major flap, which has become the most commonly
used flap for head and neck reconstruction worldwide[33]
[34]
[35]
* Andreas
Artsruni – one of the founders of geochemistry * Nagush
Arutyunyan – mechanic, pioneer of theory of creep, founder
of mechanics of accumulating deforming bodies * Daron Acemoglu
– among the 20 most
cited economists in the world, winner of the 2005 John Bates Clark
Medal * Gurgen Askaryan
– physicist, inventor of light self focusing * Iosif
Atabekov – virologist, founder of the molecular
biology of plant’s viruses (USSR) * George Aghajanian
– professor of
psychiatry, a pioneer in the area of neuropharmacology. He discovered
the mechanisms by which LSD produces hallucinations and he has also
uncovered how atypical antipsychotic drugs work.
* Hagop S. Akiskal
– psychiatrist best known for his pioneering research on temperament
and bipolar disorder (manic depression). Today’s leading conceptual
thinker in the area of bipolar subtyping.
* Boris Babaian – the
father of supercomputing in the former Soviet Union and Russia. Second
European to hold the Intel Fellow title.
* Khristofor
Bagdasaryan – author of pioneering works on radical
polymerization, founder of a new field of photochemistry,
two-quantum photochemistry of organic compounds * John Basmajian
– a world leader in
Rehabilitation Medicine, father of “EMG Biofeedback”, author of
pioneering works in electromyography.
* John P.
Bilezikian – one of the world’s leading authorities on bone
and bone disorders from Columbia University College of Physicians and
Surgeons at New York Presbyterian Hospital
.
* Levon
Chailakhyan – physiologist, in 1986 with his soviet
colleagues got the world’s first successfully cloned mammal – mice
“Masha”, 10 years before famous “Dolly” * Mikhail Chailakhyan
– founder
of hormonal theory of plant development * Raymond Damadian
– inventor
of MRI * Ara Darzi
– one of the world’s leading surgeons, pioneer in minimally
invasive and robot-assisted surgery * Richard Donchian
– the Father
of Trend Following Trading, one of the most outstanding figures
of all time in the field of commodity money management * Eduard
Yegiazaryan – engineer, one of the founders of microsensorics *
Edward Khantzian
– early pioneer in the psychological understanding of
addictions, co-originator of the self-medication hypothesis * Nikolay
Yenikolopov – one of the most outstanding chemists of the
former USSR, one of the founders of Russian polymer science * Viktor
Fanardzhyan – physiologist, formulated an elegant
system of concepts of the hierarchy of the nervious
processes affording the regulation of movements * Grigoriy
Garibyan – physicist, discoverer and developer
of the theory of X-ray transition radiation * Samvel
Grigoryan – founder of the modern theory of
dynamics of mining minerals and soils * Grigor Gurzadyan
– founder of space
astronomy * Spiru Haret
– Romanian astronomer of Armenian descent, who made a fundamental
contribution to the most celebrated problem of dynamics: the
n-body problem
, initially aimed at modelling the planetary motions in our Solar
System. His works implied that planetary motion is not absolutely
stable, and being continued by Poincaré, eventually led to the
creation of chaos theory
. Haret’s work marked the beginning of the end of an era, that
of exclusively quantitative endeavours in mathematics.[36]
*
Paris Herouni –
projected and built the world’s first radio-optical telescope * Bagrat
Ioannisiani – constructor of new astronomical instruments,
chief designer of BTA-6
– the largest telescope in the world * Andronik
Iosifyan – a great scientist and inventor, the father of
electromechanics in USSR, designer of the first meteorological
satellites of Earth and one of the founders of missilery. Iosifyan
was one of the most outstanding figures in the field of military
and rocket production. Being the founder and first director of the
USSR’s largest scientific research institute of electro-mechanics,
Iosifyan for about thirty years was the USSR’s “classified” Chief
Constructor of electrical equipment of ballistic rockets, nuclear
submarines and spacecrafts. One of his most important inventions,
noncontact synchronized transmissions, considered a revolution in
technology.[37]
[38]
[39]
[40]
[41] *
Albert Kapikian
– virologist, the father of human gastroenteritis
virus research,[42]
who developed the first licensed vaccine against rotavirus
– the leading cause
of severe diarrhea in infants and children, which accounts for
more than 500,000 deaths annually * Anna Kazanjian Longobardo
– author of
major contributions to the aerospace engineering field, the first woman
to receive the Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering achievement
* Varaztad Kazanjian
– founder of the modern practice of plastic surgery * John Kebabian
– neuroscientist
and pioneer in dopamine receptor research * Alexander Kemurdzhian
– designer of
the first rovers to explore another world: first moon rovers and
first mars rovers. Founder of the space transport engineering.
* Hampar Kelikian
– orthopedic-surgeon pioneer, was known as one of the
USA’s most celebrated and pioneering orthopedic surgeons,
who significantly extended the surgical field [43]
[44]
* Edward
Keonjian
– the father of microelectronics,[45]
designer of
the world’s first solar-powered, pocket-sized radio transmitter
* Jack Kevorkian
– pathologist ,
right-to-die
activist ,
painter , composer
, and instrumentalist
. Publicly championed a
terminal patient
‘s right to die via physician-assisted suicide
in the 1990s.
* Semyon Kirlian
– founder of Kirlian Photography
, discovered that
living matter is emitting energy fields.
* Zaven
Khachaturyan – the world’s foremost researcher on Alzheimer’s,
the father of neurobiology of aging research in USA * Levon
Khachigian – molecular biologist, who manifestly increased
the understanding of the fundamental transcriptional mechanisms
that lead to the inappropriate expression of harmful genes in
cells of blood vessels and pioneered the development of novel
strategies targeting key regulatory genes in a variety of vascular
disorders[46]
[47]
[48]
[49] *
Leonid Khachiyan –
mathematician, among the world’s most famous computer scientists,[50]
who proved
the existence of an efficient way to solve linear programming
problems thought to be intractable until that time[51]
* Mihran
Kassabian – x-ray pioneer, one of the foremost
X-ray operators in the United States * Ivan Knuniants
– chemist, Major General,
four times an awardee of the USSR State Award. In chemical science
he introduced historical changes and significantly contributed to
the advancement of Soviet Chemistry. Founder of Soviet school of
fluorocarbon’s chemistry, one of major developers of Soviet chemical
weapons program.
* Ignacy Å~Aukasiewicz
– polish
pharmacist of Armenian descent, devised the first method of distilling
kerosene from seep oil. One of the pioneers of oil industry in
the world.
* Sergey Mergelyan –
an outstanding mathematician, who is the author of major contributions
in Approximation Theory. The modern Complex Approximation Theory is
based on Mergelyan’s classical work.
* Alexander
Merzhanov – acknowledged leader in the scientific
field of combustion
and explosion
, inventor of the Self-propagating high temperature
synthesis (SHS )[52]
* Artem
Mikoyan – designer of
MiG aircraft. Mikoyan’s fighters
showed 55 world records. The Mikoyan MiG-19 was the first supersonic
Soviet jet fighter.
* John Najarian
– one of the world’s greatest surgeons,[53]
the organ transplant pioneer,[54]
who developed
one of the world’s largest transplant programs.
* Robert Nalbandyan
– chemist, the co-discoverer of photosynthetic protein plantacyanin,
a pioneer in the field of free radicals. Leader in Sickle Cell Research
& Testing Methods.
* Alexander
Narinyani – father of soviet artificial
intelligence (AI ),[55]
author of novel theory involving the conception of sub-defined
models,[56]
founder of the new scientific field – constraint programming
.[57]
[58] * Yuri
Oganessian – one of the founders of heavy ion physics,
the author of the discoveries of heaviest elements of the
Periodic Table
of Mendeleev, including the heaviest atom ever created – element
118 . An acknowledged
world-leader in the field of syntesizing and exploring new elements.
* Leon Orbeli
– founder of the evolutionary physiology * Yuri Osipyan
– physicist, author of
fundamental contribution to the physics of movements in solid bodies
and inventor of photoplastic effect. Y.
A. Osipian for many years was the vice president of the USSR Academy
of Sciences.
* Artem
Sarkisyan – a pioneer scientist in numerical modelling of ocean
circulation,[59]
one of the world’s leading oceanologists[60]
[61]
[62] *
Hrayr Shahinian
– a pioneer in microsurgical techniques of the brain [63]
* Norair Sisakian
– one of the founders
of space biology, pioneer in biochemistry of sub-cell structures and
technical biochemistry.
Was one of the first scientists in the mid-1940s to start the studies
of plant cell structures. Author of an absolutely new concept of
chloroplasts as polyfunctional cell structures. Was the first soviet
scientist to work in UNESCO.
* Armen Takhtajan
– botanist, one of the most important figures in
20th century plant evolution * Karen Ter-Martirosian
– was an outstanding theoretician, who made remarkable
contributions to the understanding of high-energy physics
phenomena.[64]
He
also created new trends in the theory of strong interactions
, and was one of
the founders of theory of strong interactions at high-energies.[65]
Author of
fundamental contributions to quantum mechanics and quantum field
theory.[66] [67]
* Avadis Tevanian
– a recognized pioneer
in creating cross-platform development environments used worldwide,
the architect of Apple’s OS X * Michel (Michael) Ter-Pogossian
–
inventor of PET scan, which
From: A. Papazian