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Memorial Tributes Volume 24 (2022) / Chapter Skim
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MIHRAN S. AGBABIAN
Pages 2-9

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From page 3...
... His father was a Protestant Armenian minister who, 9 years after Mihran's birth, moved the family to Aleppo, Syria, where he had been invited to be the pastor of the Emmanuel Armenian Evangelical Church. A significant Armenian community had settled in Syria following the demise of the Ottoman Empire, and the Syrians were a friendly host during the British Mandate.
From page 4...
... Mihran returned to Caltech and a few months later received a letter informing him that he would be the first student in the newly formed doctoral pro gram in structural mechanics at UC Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Mihran courted and later married Elizabeth Apkarian, also the daughter of an Armenian Protestant minister who was the pastor of a church in Oakland.
From page 5...
... Defense work was important, but after Jacobsen's retirement AA chose to expand into other areas that could benefit from the practice of structural and civil engineering and experimental mechanics. Mihran acquired assets from a small firm called DigiTek to augment AA's capabilities with an automotive crash testing facility in Mira Loma and computer software packages developed by University Software Systems, including the MAC/RAN software for time series, shock, and spectrum analysis of digitized vibration data.
From page 6...
... Mihran wanted AA to have a stronger research focus in this area and began a visiting professor program with the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley, bringing in consult ing professors such as Sami Masri, Thomas Hughes, and the author (ADK) to work on research projects with the AA tech nical staff.
From page 7...
... As department chair, he had a prominent role in the initial proposal for a California-based national center for earthquake engineering. His stature at the national level contributed to the ability of the School of Engineering to receive funding from private organizations and public agencies.
From page 8...
... With the heavy workload of running AA, chairing the USC Civil Engineering Department, and the effort required to start AUA, Mihran sold his company to the earthquake instrumentation firm Kinemetrics in 1989. In 1982 he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, and in 1990 he was elected as a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.
From page 9...
... , California Institute of Technology Award of Distinguished Alumnus (2000) , and honorary doctoral degrees from Yerevan State University (1994)


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