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July 18, 2002--Work by the University of Delaware’s Hai Wang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, was featured in a conference held July 3 in Yerevan, Armenia, to mark the five-year anniversary of that country’s National Foundation of Science and Advanced Technologies.
The event is being viewed in both the United States and Armenia as a milestone for international collaboration and particularly for the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), which helped create the organization to promote scientific development in the Armenian republic.
Wang is working with Adolph A. Mantashyan of the Institute of Chemical Physics at the Armenian Academy of Sciences on a process to eliminate the industrial emissions of sulfuric gas.
The conference gathered government representatives, Armenian and American scientists and business leaders to recognize accomplishments of the national foundation and to discuss future opportunities for scientific collaboration. Joint teams of Armenian-U.S. researchers, including Wang and Mantashyan, presented the highlights of their work and discussed its impact in Armenia.
Modeled on Western grant-making science organizations, the national foundation is an independent, nonprofit foundation that promotes scientific research and technological development in Armenia. The organization was established on July 4, 1997, with funding from the CRDF and approval of the government of Armenia, as part of a U.S. Department of State program to further scientific and technical assistance to Armenia.
The national foundation supports Armenia’s scientific and engineering potential by awarding competitive grants to joint teams of Armenian-U.S. scientists in basic and applied research. The foundation’s training seminars and workshops assist scientists in writing proposals and moving applied research to the marketplace.
National foundation travel grants enable young Armenian scientists and engineers to travel abroad to conduct short-term research projects at U.S. laboratory facilities, and the foundation also provides selected Armenian institutions with state-of-the-art equipment for a more productive research and development environment. All activities strive to advance the transition of weapons scientists to civilian work.
“Armenia’s scientific community has a lot to offer,” according to Harutyun Karapetyan, chairman of the national foundation. “Our job is to make sure that the international scientific community becomes aware of this by helping Armenian science reach its full potential.”
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