User:David Nir/sandbox/Biography

Eleonora (Nora) Tsolakovna Gabrielyan, Eleonora Tzolakovna Gabrielian (Armenian: Էլեոնորա Ցոլակի Գաբրիելյան; Russian: Элеонора Цолаковна Габриэлян) (born February 22, 1929) is a Soviet, Armenian born botanist, doctor of biological sciences, professor.

E. Gabrielyan is the president of the Armenian Botanic Society, she is a Specialist in the field of taxonomy, geography, evolutionary morphology and anatomy of plants. Passionate and devoted ecologist, she is the author of the first Red Data List of Armenia. She has been awarded numerous awards and prizes during her extraordinary career.

Early life
E. Gabrielyan was born in Yerevan on February 22, 1929 to Tzolak Gabrielian and Zvart Cholakian. Her mother was an English teacher, her father was an electrical engineer who was repressed in 1937, rehabilitated posthumously in 1956. In 1946, Eleonora completed secondary school and entered the Biology and Soil Faculty of the Yerevan State University, where at that time A. L. Takhtajan was teaching. After 2 years, she transfers to the Biology and Soil Faculty of Moscow State University, where she graduates with honors in 1951. In 1952-1955, she completed her doctorate in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) at the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russian: Ботанический институт им. В. Л.Комарова РАН), in the plant systematics and geography department. During her doctorate studies, she met her future husband Vladislav Agababian, also a botanist, future professor, who would become one of the founders of the Armenian school of palynology.

Under the guidance of A. L. Takhtajan, she successfully completed her Ph. D. thesis on "Caucasian representatives of the genus Sorbus L.".

Career
In 1955, E. Gabrielyan returned to Armenia and entered the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia as a junior researcher in the Department of Plant Systematics and Geography. In 1960, she became a senior researcher, in 1986 a leading researcher and in 1989 the head of the department of Plant Taxonomy and Geography in the Institute of Botany.

Since 1989 she has been in charge of the Department of Systematics and Geography of the Institute of Botany of the Republic of Armenia and heading a multivolume edition of the Flora of Armenia. Thanks to numerous expeditions in Armenia and other regions of the Caucasus, as well as by studying extensive materials in various herbaria worldwide, Eleonora successfully completed in 1974 a doctoral thesis on the topic "The genus Sorbus L. of western Asia and the Himalayas".

Later on, in 1978, she published the fundamental monograph "Sorbus L. (Western Europe) and the Himalayas" "... which constitutes the gold fund of world literature on the systematics of flowering plants ..." (Bot. Journ. 1999. 84 (9): 133). The book was awarded in 1984 by the Komarov Prize, the highest award of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Being one of the main authors of the multivolume edition of Flora of Armenia, and later heading the edition, she has always intensively continued the systematic research of numerous complex groups of plants, such as ferns, Scrophulariaceae, Compositae, Liliaceae and Poaceae families.

In 1980, in Spain (Seville), she participated for the first time in the conference on the study of the Mediterranean flora OPTIMA. In 1989, she was elected a member of the Executive Council of this organization.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia is going through hard times. Thanks to the efforts of prof.Gabrielyan the last volumes (9, 10, 11) of the Flora of Armenia are published, but this time abroad. This is how cooperation began with the publishing house Koeltz Scientific Books.

Even during the times of the Iron Curtain, she actively cooperated with botanists from many Western countries. At the request of prof. P. H. Davis, prof. Gabrielyan prepared a revision of the genus Sorbus L. for the multivolume edition of Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands. Together with prof. W. Greuter, a modern catalog of Pteridophyta of the Armenian flora was compiled. Cooperation and long-term friendship with Israeli colleagues prof. D. Zohary and O. Fragman-Sapir resulted in the publication of "Wild relatives of food crops native to Armenia and Nakhichevan" (2004) – the first detailed list of descriptions and maps of wild relatives of cultivated plants, and "Flowers of Transcaucasus and Adjacent Areas" (2008), the first scientific publication, illustrated by color photographs of plants and landscapes.

At the initiative of prof. Gabrielyan, a multi-year project began in order to create a compressed, easy-to-use, single-volume edition of the Flora of Armenia in three languages (Armenian, Russian, English) for the identification of plants. Long time collaboration with Carolyn Mugar and financial support of the Armenia Tree Project (ATP), the work is nearing completion.

Protection of the nature in Armenia
Prof. Gabrielyan has always been dedicated to the protection of the nature in Armenia. She compiled the first "List of rare and endangered plants of Armenia" (1979). Other works include: "Nature protection in Armenia" (1988), essays on all the protected territories of Armenia, in the book "Reserves of the Caucasus" (1990). Already in the 1980s, together with A. L. Takhtajan, she organized a series of speeches on television, radio and in the all-Union press to prevent the construction of a pumped storage power plant on the territory of the Khosrov Reserve. She takes an active effort and contributes to the set up of the Erebuni Reserve. She managed to save the Artanish Reserve from being transferred to management under the military unit of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia, where it would be used to construct a military facility. Since 2002, she has been a consultant in the two major organizations for nature protection: The Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC) and WWF, participating in numerous projects on the study, conservation and sustainable use of natural resources of Armenia. In 2016 on the initiative of E.G. in collaboration with O. Fragman-Sapir and Karen Manvelyan, the book Green Armenia was published with notes and illustrations of the most remarkable representatives of the Armenian flora.

Career and educational highlights
Key Dates

February 22, 1929 was born in Yerevan

1946 graduated from secondary school, enrolled in Yerevan State University, Yerevan

1948-1951 transferred to Moscow State University, Moscow

1952-1955 postgraduate study at the Komarov Institute. Leningrad (St. Petersburg)

1955 Ph.D. thesis, junior research assistant, Institute of Botany National Academy of Sciences of Armenia/NAS Arm. SSR (Yerevan)

1960 Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Botany National Academy of Sciences of Armenia/NAS Arm. SSR (Yerevan)

1974 doctoral thesis

1978 publication of the book "Sorbus L. (Sorbus L.) of Western Asia and the Himalayas"

1984 Prize for them. VL Komarova

1989 Member of the Executive Board of OPTIMA

1989 Leading Researcher, Institute of Botany National Academy of Sciences of Armenia/NAS RA(Yerevan)

1989. Head of the Department of Systematics and Geography of Higher Plants, Institute of Botany National Academy of Sciences of Armenia/NAS RA (Yerevan)

Personal life
Her passion for traveling has always been another distinguishing feature. During her student years, she traveled alone, with a herbarium bag on her shoulder, walking on foot throughout the Caucasus discovering the region with a very rich flora. Leter on her travels have taken her throughout Great Britain, the Baltic states, the Carpathians, Central Asia, Iran and Kamchatka. One of the highlights of her travels included a 5-months voyage in the Indian Ocean on the research vessel "Acad. Vernadsky" in 1981. A year later, she participates in the expedition organized by A. Cronquist in the United States together with A. L. Takhtajan.

A great connoisseur and admirer of contemporary fine arts, E. Gabrielyan shared along-lasting friendship with Armenian masters such as Martiros Saryan (a portrait of her from his brush is kept in the National Gallery of Armenia), Minas Avetisyan, Haroutiun Galentz, accompanying them to the plain air, often visiting their workshops.

Scientific discoveries/publications
=== Plants named by Eleonora === Amaryllidaceae Galanthus artjuschenkoae Gabrieljan in Fl. Rastitel'nost' Rast. Res. Arm. 12: 13. 1999.

Asteraceae Amberboa gubanovii Gabrieljan in Takhtajania 1: 37. 2011.

Asteraceae Amberboa takhtajanii Gabrieljan in Takhtajania 1: 36. 2011.

Asteraceae Carthamus tamamschjanae Gabrieljan in Fl., Rast. i Rast. Res. Arm. SSR 10: 21. 1987.

See full list here.

Honours and awards
Medal of the XII International Botanical Congress, Leningrad, 1975

Certificate of Merit of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1978

Higher (Komarov) prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1984

Medal of Valiant Labour of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 1986

Honorary vice-president and silver medal of XIV International Botanical Congress, Berlin, 1987

George Soros's Foundation scolarship, Biodiversity, 1992

Honorary Silver Plaque of Herbarium Mediterraneum Foundation, Palermo, 2001

Honorary Diploma and Prize of Russian Party of Self-government of Working People, Moscow, 2003

Plant species named in honour of Eleonora
Clusiaceae Hypericum eleonorae

Plumbaginaceae Acantholimon gabrieljaniae

Asteraceae Cousinia gabrieljaniae

Hyacinthaceae Ornithogalum gabrielianiae

Asteraceae Centaurea gabrieljanae

Poaceae Bromopsis gabrielianae

Rosaceae Sorbus eleonorae

Liliaceae Gagea eleonorae

Papaveraceae Papaver gabrielianae

Brassicaceae Erysimum gabrielianiae

Caryophyllaceae Dianthus gabrielianae

Poaceae Puccinellia gabrieljanae

Rosaceae Pyrus gabrieljanae