Press Release

NAS RA V. Ambartsumian Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO)
Press release 07.09.2023

DR. JIVAN STEPANIAN’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY

Jivan Avetis Stepanian was born on September 7 1948, in Kirovabad. He studied at the Physical-Mathematical Department of the Yerevan State University (YSU) and graduated in 1970 with a specialization of Astrophysics. After graduation, he started working at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory (BAO), first as an administrator of the Computing Centre of the Observatory. He passed his military service as signaller in Mongolia.

In 1973, he returned to the Observatory and was invited by B.E. Markarian to work on the First Byurakan Survey (FBS). He became an experienced observer and co-author of 5 Survey lists and the Catalog of Markarian galaxies. Additionally, from 1973 onwards, Stepanian simultaneously dedicated himself to developing a methodology for the Second Byurakan Survey (SBS). He created a device for sensitization of the photographic plates by heating them in the nitrogen flow. While this method was known abroad, Stepanian was the first in the Soviet Union who implemented it. Starting from 1978 he was engaged in the SBS. This was a large project, where only images of good and excellent quality were required for getting needed results, therefore he was also often engaged in improvement of the work of the 1m Schmidt telescope. He also received observing time and studied the revealed objects on the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO, Russia) 6m telescope.

In 1985, Stepanian defended his PhD thesis on “The Second Byurakan Survey” (Markarian was his scientific supervisor), while working on it. In 1988, he headed the Laboratory of the 1m Schmidt telescope and from 1991 he was a senior research associate. In 1989, the research group of this laboratory received a grant from the USSR Academy of Sciences on the subject of connection of macro- and micro- Cosmos (Velikhov). Starting from 1991, Stepanian worked as Deputy Director on Science of SAO, continuing working on the SBS. Later, in 1995, he defended his Doctoral thesis.

J. Stepanian is a leading expert in the field of extragalactic surveys, QSOs, Seyfert galaxies, and other active galaxies. He is a member of IAU.

Meline Asryan