Members of FAR’s educational program committee recently visited the sites where this year’s grantees from the Armenian National Science and Education Fund (ANSEF) are currently conducting their research. For the past 10 months, these 27 groups have been working on a wide range of projects in the sciences and the humanities. Their work has been featured in more than 65 news articles published in international scientific journals and they have also presented their work at more than 40 conferences and symposiums throughout this year.
This week FAR will be highlighting the work of selected ANSEF groups.
To learn more about FAR’s ANSEF program click here.
Dr. Aram Petrosyan is leading the ANSEF PS 1839 group. He has studied crystal chemistry and crystal physics since 1975. Currently, Dr. Petrosyan works at the Institute of Allied Problems of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Armenia. In recent years, he has collaborated with others to study crystals in the salts of amino acids, of which very little is known. The aim of his current ANSEF project is titled “Mixed Salts of Amino Acids as a Mine of New Materials,” through which he and his partners are studying this type of crystalline salt in more detail.
With his partners, Ph.D student Vahram V. Ghazaryan, Dr. Armen Aghajanyan of the NAS Institute of Biotechnology, and assistance from Dr. Michel Fleck from Vienna University, group 1839 has discovered more than 30 new mixed salts of amino acids. Previously only three such salts were known.
Mr. Petrosyan spoke highly of the youngest member of his team. Vahram, he said, is a very modest, hard-working and clever student. “He has improved his work considerably and he’s accomplished quite a bit in a very short period. Witnessing his persistency I can state that he will have a good future,” he said.
When I spoke with Vahram myself, I asked him if he’s experienced some disappointment during this particular work period. “Never,” he replied. “Even if the result is negative or unsatisfying it again provides ground for rethinking the problem and it provokes new thoughts of finding solutions. This is one the primary reasons I find science so interesting.”
So far this year, the group has worked hard. They’ve attended numerous conferences and they have published six articles about their results in the international journals Spectrochimica Acta and Molecular Structure. Three others have been submitted for publication.
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