Armen Sarkissian

Armen Sarkissian is an Armenian physicist, computer scientist and politician, who currently serves as the incumbent President of Armenia. He served as Prime Minister of Armenia from 4 November 1996 to 20 March 1997 and previously was the country’s (longest-serving) ambassador in London since 1998. Sarkissian assumed the presidency on 9 April 2018. Armen Sarkissian […]
Russell Schweickart

Russell “Rusty” Schweickart is an American aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut, research scientist, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, as well as a former business executive and government executive. Selected in 1963 for NASA’s third astronaut group, he is best known as the Lunar Module Pilot on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, the first manned flight test of the Lunar Module, on which he performed the first in-space test […]
Robert Williams

Professor Robert Williams, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), is President of the International Astronomical Union. (IAU). He is an STScI Distinguished Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Physics and Astronomy Department in Baltimore. Professor Williams served as Hubble STScI Director from 1993 until 1998, before which he had […]
Jaan Tallinn

Jaan Tallinn is an Estonian programmer, investor, and physicist who participated in the development of Skype in 2002 and FastTrack/Kazaa, a file-sharing application, in 2000. Jaan Tallinn is partner and co-founder of the development company Bluemoon which created the game SkyRoads. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1996 with a BSc in Theoretical […]
Jack Szostak

Biologist and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Professor Szostak was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres. Prof. Szostak has made significant contributions […]
Richard Goldman

Rich Goldman is the Vice-president of Corporate Marketing and Strategic Alliances for Synopsys (Mountain View, California), a CEO of Synopsys Armenia and a finalist for the 2010 US Secretary of State ACE Award. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Synopsys Outreach Foundation and of the Synopsys Charitable Foundation for Armenia. Goldman is […]
Eva Villaver

Prof. Eva Villaver is a distinguished astrophysicist renowned for her groundbreaking research on the evolution of planetary systems around dying stars and her unwavering dedication to science outreach. Currently Deputy Director at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, she has made astronomy accessible to broad audiences through her popular science book Las mil caras de […]
Andreas Kaufer

Andreas Kaufer is a senior science leader at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). He earned his PhD in astronomy at Heidelberg University (1996) and joined ESO in 1999, contributing to the start of operations of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. His scientific work focuses on high-resolution spectroscopy of massive, luminous stars, probing how their atmospheres, winds, and circumstellar environments evolve and vary over […]
Pietro Barabaschi

Pietro Barabaschi is a Director-General of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). ITER is the world’s largest fusion experiment. Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build and operate the ITER Tokamak, the most complex machine ever constructed by humans. Pietro Barabaschi has been working since 2009 in Fusion for Energy (F4E), the European Union organisation responsible for […]
Maureen Raymo

Maureen Raymo is a climate scientist who works at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory where she is the G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences and Co-Founding Dean Emerita of the Columbia Climate School. Prof. Raymo’s research focuses on the history and causes of climate change in the past, including understanding the consequences […]
