Gurgen Khachatryan, CSE Professor whose research interests include cryptography and IT security, was invited to Tbilisi, Georgia in November to participate in GITI 2012, a Georgian ICT development and cyber security conference organized by the ICT Business Council and Data Exchange Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia.

Artak Hambarian, CSE Assistant Professor whose research interests include Alternative Energy, was in Tbilisi, Georgia in November to participate in the European Union Framework Programme on Research and Innovation – Horizon 2020: Science, Technology and Innovation cooperation in addressing Societal Challenges.

Alen Amirkhanian, CSE Lecturer and Interim Director of the Acopian Center for the Environment whose research interests include green technology, energy, and the environment, and Irshat Madyarov, Assistant Professor in the CHSS, participated in a workshop held in November at the American University in Cairo (AUC) on Collaborative Learning Technologies.    Amirkhanian also participated in the International Greening Education Event in the previous month in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Rubina Danilova, CSE Operations Coordinator, participated in a three week training course at the Maastricht School of Management Executive Program “Leadership and Management of Higher Education Institutions.

Sargis Zeytunyan, CSE Lecturer and Program Chair of IESM whose research interests include Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing, participated in a kick-off meeting with the complete stakeholder team as part of AUA’s Tempus Project involvement in Ilmenau Germany.  The Tempus project’s purpose is to empower university-enterprise partnerships in Armenia as well as other participant countries.

Victor Ohanyan, CSE Adjunct Professor whose research interests include Probability and Statistics, was invited to present a paper in December at a scientific seminar at Université du Maine in Le Mans, France.

Suren Khachatryan, CSE Assistant Professor and Program Chair of CIS whose research interests include Software Engineering, led several student teams from AUA who participated in an ACM Programming competition in December in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Aram Hajian, Dean of the CSE, and Raffi Kassarjian, CSE Visiting Lecturer, participated together with President Bruce Boghosian, Vice President Maral Chalian, and Advisor to the President Vache Kirakosyan at the ArmTech Congress in December at Stanford University.  President Boghosian presented a paper and Mr. Kassarjian moderated a panel at the event.

Mariam Matevosyan and Artyom Mkrtchyan (PSIA) were awarded fellowships through the Caucasus Research Resource Center’s (CRRC) 2012-2013 annual fellowship program.  The program, which began in 2004, supports researchers in the South Caucasus.  Matevosyan’s research will focus on the relationship between trust and economic growth, and Mkrtchyan will explore the frequency and context by which the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan refer to the Karabakh.

Seven teams from the Professional MBA (PMBA) program and six teams from the Fulltime MBA program went head-to-head in two business plan competitions organized by the College of Business and Economics (CBE). Each team delivered 10 minute pitches to a panel of expert judges including Arthur Mikaelyan, MLL Industries CEO and Founder; Samson Avetian, Arrow Global Investment Managing Director; Lilit Yordanyan, Head of Internal Audit at Converse Bank; Arno Mosikyan, Director of Investment Banking at AmeriaBank;  Araksya Melkonyan, Founder and CEO, IAB Center, and Aram Hajian, Dean of AUA’s College of Science and Engineering. The competitions were moderated by Andrei Guschin, Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at CBE.      

The AUA main building also has 72 photovoltaic panels (total of 5 kW capacity) that allows AUA to produce electricity in its main building to meet the needs of the aforementioned Solar HVAC system, as well as emergency/server backup needs. Any excess generation of electricity is also sent to the national electricity grid.

The American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia.  Founded in 1991, AUA is affiliated with the University of California.  Through teaching, research, and public service, AUA serves Armenia and the region by supplying high-quality, graduate and undergraduate education, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting democratic values.

The AUA is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, 985 Atlantic Avenue, #100, Alameda, CA 94501, 510-748-9001.

Shushan Avagyan, a lecturer at the American University of Armenia’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has received an honorable mention by the Modern Language Association of America for her translation of “Bowstring: On the Dissimilarity of the Similar,” by Viktor Shklovsky.

The distinction was made on December 4 as part of the association’s tenth Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for an Outstanding Translation of a Literary Work to Robert M. Durling for his translation of The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, volume 3: Paradiso, published by Oxford University Press. 

Avagyan’s translation was described by the Scaglione Prize selection committee in a press release as “an impressively readable and accurate rendering of a previously untranslated work” by one of the most influential literary authors in the Russian formalist movement.

“Shushan Avagyan captures for the English-speaking world the subtleties and complexities of this seminal work, notable for its redefinition and exaltation of estrangement (ostranenie) as the supreme device of the literary comparatist,” explains the selection committee. “Resourceful in her handling of Viktor Shklovsky’s often-digressive style, Avagyan adroitly manages the book’s manipulation of textual montage, its experimental amalgam of memoir, autobiography, biography, history, and literary criticism. The provocative tone and subversive attitude of this book and its indictment of literary stagnation and cultural parochialism are likewise conveyed to great effect.”

Avagyan received her MA and PhD from Illinois State University. She is the translator from Russian of Viktor Shklovsky’s “A Hunt for Optimism and Energy of Delusion: A Book on Plot,” as well as the translator from Armenian of “I Want to Live: Poems of Shushanik Kurghinian.”

Her articles have appeared in Contemporary Women’s Writing and The Book of Saint Ejneb and the forthcoming issue of Dissidences: Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism. Her work focuses on representations of trauma and mourning in African American and Armenian American literature.

The American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia.  Founded in 1991, AUA is affiliated with the University of California.  Through teaching, research, and public service, AUA serves Armenia and the region by supplying high-quality, graduate and undergraduate education, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting democratic values.

The AUA is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, 985 Atlantic Avenue, #100, Alameda, CA 94501, 510-748-9001.

Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan has appointed Varduhi Petrosyan, associate professor and program director of the Masters in Public Health, as Advisor to the Prime Minister on Health Reforms, on a voluntary basis. Petrosyan, who is also the Director of the AUA’s Center for Health Services Research and Development, earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management.     

American University of Armenia Presents latest initiatives in education, technology, and entrepreneurship

SAN JOSE, CA–The American University of Armenia (AUA) is cultivating Armenia’s next generation of entrepreneurs, technology leaders, and world-class researchers, said AUA President Dr. Bruce Boghosian on Monday, December 10, while speaking at ArmTech Congress 2012 about the university’s latest initiatives to foster the development of a knowledge-based economy in Armenia. 

This year’s ArmTech conference, hosted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, brought together more than 120 technology executives, entrepreneurs, academic researchers, venture capitalists, and senior Armenian government officials to discuss and explore the development of Armenia’s technology sector.

Dr. Boghosian outlined AUA’s current and new programs during a panel focused on the state and direction of research and development in universities, research institutes, and laboratories.  Bringing the focus to higher education in Armenia, he introduced AUA’s new Master of Science Degree in Economics and Bachelor of Science Degree in Computational Sciences, emphasizing the potential impact of these two programs on the development of business, technology, and entrepreneurship in Armenia.

“With the bachelor’s degree in computational sciences, we are leveraging Armenia’s existing expertise in physics and mathematics, and combining it with software development to help Armenia produce scientific and engineering software for the world,” explained Dr. Boghosian. “Our master’s degree in economics, meanwhile, will prepare business leaders and economic professionals to help guide sustainable economic growth in Armenia and strengthen its position in the global and regional economy.”

Dr. Boghosian illustrated how these changes have already begun taking shape in the halls and classrooms of AUA, with students coming together to imagine and create new and innovative businesses.  

“We have had two business plan competitions in the last month,” he said. “Some of our students have gone further and actually started new high-tech companies.  For example, the latest AUA student startup is called Verium, and it is working on cryptographic solutions to combat counterfeiting and identity theft.” 

AUA is the early stages of planning a cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship center to inspire and incubate new businesses such as these, explained Boghosian, adding that it is the university’s intention to bring to Armenia the model of integrating education and entrepreneurship in universities.

Among the many other successes stories highlighted by Dr. Boghosian during his presentation was AUA’s Turpanjian Rural Development program, which has trained 600 people and helped developed 60 new rural businesses.

Since opening its doors in 1991, AUA has graduated more than 2,000 professionals, noted Dr. Boghosian, adding that the vast majority of those graduates have remained in Armenia to become valuable leaders of its society and economy.

Today, the university is gearing up to launch an innovative, new undergraduate program for the fall of 2013, offering bachelor’s degrees in business, English and communications, and computational sciences.  These new programs will provide Armenian students access to a liberal arts education focused on building a foundation of general knowledge, specialization in skills and career preparation.            

“But to make all this work, we are constantly looking for funding opportunities, foreign research collaborations, and grant partners,” Boghosian said, urging members of the audience to join the University’s mission. “Consider this an invitation to come join us in this effort. This university is worth your involvement and your investment.”

ArmTech 2012 is organized through the joint efforts of the Government of Armenia, the USAID-funded Enterprise Development and Market Competitiveness (EDMC) Project, Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF), ViaSphere Technopark, Armenian Development Agency (ADA), Synopsys Armenia, the Armenian American Chamber of Commerce, and Groupement Interprofessionnel International Armenien (G2IA). 

The American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia.  Founded in 1991, AUA is affiliated with the University of California.  Through teaching, research, and public service, AUA serves Armenia and the region by supplying high quality graduate and undergraduate education, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting democratic values.

The AUA is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, 985 Atlantic Avenue, #100, Alameda, CA 94501, 510-748-9001.