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The following is from a RETROSPECTIVE that appeared in Applied Mechanics Reviews, Vol. 55, No. 5, September 2002, p. R35 by Professor Sarp Adali and Professor Arthur Leissa:
Sergey Aleksandr Ambartsumian was born in Aleksandrpole (present day Gyurmi) in Armenia in 1922. He graduated from Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in 1942 where he received the Candidate degree in 1946, becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1947. He worked at the Institute of Building Materials and Construction of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia until 1955, and he became Deputy Director for Science of the Institute. He received the Doctor of Technical Sciences degree in 1952 at the age of 30 and became a Professor in 1953, quite exceptional achievements in the Soviet Union, especially at such an early age. From 1955 until 1977 he was the Director of the Institute of Mechanics of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia.
His research in the fifties and sixties focused on the theory of anisotropic plates and shells culminating in two landmark books, namely, Theory of Anisotropic Shells (1961)) and Theory of Anisotropic Plates (1967), both later translated into English. Subsequently, he continued to develop plate and shell theories involving materials having additional complexities, especially coupling with electromagnetic fields. He employed these to make parametric studies of their behaviors and their limits of application. In the course of this work, he published scores of papers and eight additional books.
Professor Ambartsumian was elected an Academician of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia in 1965, acting as its Vice-President between 1974 and 1977. From 1977 to 1991 he was the Rector of Yerevan State University. Since 1961 he has been a member of the Presidium of the National Academy of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the USSR (later Russia). His scientific activities earned him several medals including the Academician SJ Vavilov Medal in 1979, a Merits-in-Science medal from Yerevan State University in 1985, a medal “For Merit” from the University of Montpelier (France) in 1986, and a Great Silver Medal and Prize from the International Engineering Academy in 2000. He received an honorary doctorate from Bratislava University in 1984, and he was elected an Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics in 1985. His most recent activities include being the founder (in 1998) and Honorary President of the Armenian Society of Mechanics and Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia.
Sarp Adali and Arthur Leissa
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