Grigor Vardanyan

Bio

Grigor Vardanyan is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (IOS NAS RA) since 2011. His primary research interests are in Arabic Studies, with a focus on the contemporary history of Syria and the Syrian Alawite community. He is the author of numerous scientific articles on Syrian history, and his first monograph, "The Alawi Community in Syria: From Minority to Political-Military Elite," was published in 2017 by NAS RA in Yerevan.

Since 2018, Mr. Vardanyan has been one of the founders and a full-time manager at "Green Food LLC," a strawberry farming and trading company based in Armenia. In addition, from 2010 to 2017, Mr. Vardanyan worked as an Assistant in international relations and military education at the office of the First Deputy Minister of Defense of Armenia. He is an alumnus of NATO Defense College (Senior Course 125 / 2014-2015) and completed military special courses at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in California/Monterey in 2013. Mr. Vardanyan also graduated from the British Military English Course at York Saint John University in the UK in 2012.

Prior to joining the Ministry of Defense, he held different positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia. Mr. Vardanyan holds an MA in Arabic Studies from Yerevan State University (2008) and a PhD in Arabic Studies from the Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (2011). He is also a CAMCA Fellow from Fall 2022.