George Aghjayan
George Aghjayan graduated with honors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1988 with a Bachelor of science degree in Actuarial Mathematics. He achieved Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries in 1996. After a career in both insurance and structured finance, Aghjayan retired in 2014 to concentrate on Armenian related research and projects. His primary area of focus is the demographics and geography of western Armenia as well as a keen interest in the hidden Armenians living there today. Other topics he has written and lectured on include Armenian genealogy and genocide denial. He maintains the website http://westernarmenia.weebly. com/
Mark Arslan
Mark Arslan recently retired from 35 years at IBM Corporation in technical services and sales. He is married with three children and lives in North Carolina. Mark is one-fourth Armenian; his paternal grandfather Dikran Arslanian immigrated to America in 1906 from Keghi, Erzurum, Turkey and eventually moved to Fresno, California in the early 1930’s, where Mark’s parents grew up. Mark has been researching his Armenia genealogy since the early 1970’s. He founded the Armenian DNA Project (FamilyTreeDNA) in 2005. In 2011, he started the Armenian Immigration Project (an online database of abstracts of primary source material for the study of Armenian immigration to North America through 1930). Mark continues to develop the database and leads a team of volunteers who are adding content from localities in North America where Armenians settled.
Tracey Keeney
Tracy Keeney is half Armenian and half French/Canadian. She began researching her Armenian ancestry in 2013 as an amateur, but her creative methods for researching her difficult to trace genealogy and locating previously unknown records has resulted in the discovery of 627 previously unknown ancestors and 73 confirmed but previously unknown living relatives in 7 different countries, from Syria, Iran, the United Emirates, Canada, France, Argentina and the US. She is also the founder of The Armenian Genealogy Group on Facebook, with just under 11,000 members members spanning the globe. Tracy is happily married, has 4 children and is currently pursuing her credentials as a professional genealogist.
Ani Boghikian Kasparian
Ani Boghikian Kasparian, born in Beirut, Lebanon, has been a member of the Detroit Armenian community since 1969. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Community Agency Counseling and another in Education. She was a high school English and Social Studies teacher for ten years. Since 2004, she has been teaching Western Armenian as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and works as an assistant at the Armenian Research Center of the same university. She is an independent researcher with a focus on the small but vital Armenian communities of Western Armenia post genocide to present, documenting those Armenians’ life experiences, traditions and perspectives. In 2016, she formed the USA headquarters of the Houshamadyan Project (houshamadyan.org). Ani was a member of the Michigan Governor’s Council on Genocide and Holocaust Resources and Education committee, which provided the necessary tools for Michigan educators to teach about the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust as mandated by Michigan law. She is a member of the Armenian Genocide Education Committee (AGEC) and oversees its teacher training and classroom resources initiatives.
Tsoleen Sarian
Tsoleen Sarian is the Executive Director of Project Save, Armenian Photograph Archives. Her previous work in the non-profit sector has included Armenia Tree Project and the Global Partnership for Afghanistan, as well as a period with the Conflict Management Group. She serves in a leadership role at the Armenian Memorial Church, and on the Board of Directors of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Eastern Region. From 2002-13, she participated on the Massachusetts State House Armenian Genocide Commemoration Steering Committee, serving as its chair during her last three years. A graduate of Merrimack College with a major in French and history, Sarian has also participated in the Armenian Assembly of America’s summer internship program. She is currently studying for a masters degree in non-profit management from Northeastern University.
Dr. Carla Garapedian
A filmmaker, director, writer and broadcaster. Carla directed and produced “Screamers,” a critically acclaimed film, looking at the recurring problem of genocide and genocide denial, it has been described as “brilliant” (Larry King, CNN), “eye-opening” (LA Times), “extraordinary (Maxim), “articulate and invigorating” (New York Times) and “powerful” (UK Guardian).
Garapedian is also the only American to anchor the famous BBC World News. She has also been a correspondent for NBC Sunrise, NBC Nightly News and CNBC in London. She narrated the Armenian genocide film, “Voices from the Lake” by celebrated filmmaker, J.Michael Hagopian, as well as co-writing his award-winning film “Germany and the Secret Genocide.” She is the narrator for his most recent genocide film “The River Ran Red.” In 2007 Garapedian was awarded the Armin T. Wegner Humanitarian Award, by the Armin T. Wegner Foundation in Germany and the ARPA Foundation. She is a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. She earned her undergraduate and Ph.D. degrees in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Mari A. Firkatian
Mari A. Firkatian is Professor of History at the University of Hartford. She has been a Fulbright Scholar and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow as well as a Yale University Fellow and a recipient of International Research and Exchanges Board scholarships. She has lived and traveled extensively in Southeast Europe and the Soviet Union. Trained as a linguist and a historian her research interests include minority populations, diplomatic history and intellectual history.
Janet Achoukian Andreopoulos
Janet Achoukian Andreopoulos is an amateur genealogist who was born and raised in the Detroit area with ancestors from the villages of Evereg and Aintab. She has a B.S. in Accounting from MSU, however her true passion is genealogy, which was sparked while attending the AGBU School. Her family tree of 30k plus continues to expand as she connects with people around the globe. She is particularly interested in the use of autosomal DNA to help reunite people with their long lost relatives. Now a co-admin with the Armenian DNA Project, she enjoys teaching people about the use of DNA techniques to advance traditional genealogy. Janet is happily married and resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband and 2 sons.
Levon Yepiskoposyan
One of the pre-eminent names in Armenian DNA studies, Levon Yepiskoposyan, is an academic from the Institute of Molecular Biology at the Armenian Academy of Sciences whose passion for Armenian genealogy has taken on new dimensions in its application. Through his leadership, the ArmGenia project was established to study Armenians around the world, based on their origins in historic Armenia. The ultimate goal of ArmGenia is to draw a genetic atlas of historical Armenia to reproduce the rich spatial mosaic of the Armenian gene pool.
Ayşenur Korkmaz
Ayşenur Korkmaz is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Amsterdam, European Studies.She gained her Master’s degree at Central European University, Nationalism Studies with honours. Her main areas of interest are the late Ottoman Empire, Soviet Armenia, as well as anthropological concepts of homeland, sacralization, and materiality. She published several
articles on the Hamidian Massacres, and the lives of Ottoman Armenian intellectuals in the nineteenth century, and the Armenian genocide. Korkmaz’s current doctoral research explores the post-genocide articulations of the Armenian homeland (Ergir), through materiality and rituals.