Born: 9 November 1921, Iran
Died: 4 March 2011
Country most active: Iran
Also known as: Armenian: Ալենուշ Տէրեան; Persian: آلنوش طریان; also: آلنوش تریان;
Iranian-Armenian astronomer and physicist Ālenush Teriān has been called the ‘Mother of Modern Iranian Astronomy’.
Teriān was born in 1921 to an Armenian family; her parents were Arto, a theatre director, poet and translator, and Varto, a director, professor and possibly Iran’s first stage actress.
After graduating from the science department at the University of Tehran, she began working in the school’s physics laboratory, and was soon made chief of laboratory operations. She applied to study in France, but her supervisor denied her request, believing she had enough education for a woman. With her father’s financial support, she went to France to earn her doctorate in atmospheric physics from the Sorbonne University. She returned to Iran after she completed her PhD in 1956, accepting an assistant professor position at the University of Tehran, teaching thermodynamics.
She later earned a scholarship to spend four months in West Germany, studying solar physics, once again returning to Iran. In 1964, she became the country’s first female physics professor, at the University of Tehran. In 1966, she became a member of the university’s geophysics committee, and in 1969 was elected chief of solar physics studies. She co-founded and work in the solar observatory at the university, Iran’s first solar telescopic observatory.