Haig Eskandarian '07
 About Haig
Haig Eskandarian is a dual citizen of France and the
United States and is of Armenian origin. As an
undergraduate, he studied abroad in Paris at Paris IV:
Sorbonne (Russian history) and Paris VI: Pierre et Marie
Curie (Molecular Biology of Eukaryotes).
Haig was an Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow
in 2004 and in 2007 worked as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(HHMI) Student Research Fellow studying Ribosome Recycling in
mutants of E. coli and Bacillus subtilis in Dr. Marina Borisovna
Garber's Biochemistry and Molceular Biology lab in Pushchino,
Russia.
Haig is currently a junior research scientist and manager of the
Genomics Analysis Center at New York University and is receiving
a master's in developmental biology. He is also starting an
organization with a colleague from the Whitehead Institute at
MIT and another from Stanford to help advance scientific
research and education in Armenia.
Personal Statement
As a student at Richmond, I had the
wonderful opportunity to travel abroad to my home country,
France, and study there at the best universities. I made
lasting friendships with many people from all over the world. I
lived in the south of Paris in a student housing campus for
students, of Armenian origin, which made getting to know people
easier.
My experience in Russia was a true
experience abroad because I had never been to a nation where I
was really a foreigner speaking in their language. I had a
unique experience working with mainly Russians in Russian.
Being of Armenian origin, Russia was always "big brother" for
me and for Armenia and now I feel closer to it. I studied
Russian literature and art at Richmond and when I went to
Russia, I saw where Surikov, Polenov, and Chekhov lived,
Dostoevsky's statue in front of the National library in Moscow,
the Red Square where my Grandfather had marched as a soldier
during the Great Patriotic War (WWII), as well as the vast and
endless landscape that defines Russia's soul and which I had
envisioned in my mind when reading Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago,
Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, of Turgenev's Fathers
and Sons.
I lived in the small town on the southern
fringe of the Moscow Oblast, the old border between the Muscovy
Grand Principality and the Golden Hordes of Bakhchisaraii,
Astrakhan, etc. There was only one other American and a few
French that visited once during my stay. The rest of the time I
was totally surrounded by Russians from Perm or the Crimea, or
Kazakhstan, or even Korea, and wherever else. I can say that I
saw the real Russia, city and country and it was an opportunity
not to have forgone. No regrets, just pleasant memories and
stories to tell.
Contact Haig
Haig invites students to contact him if
they need extra enthusiasm and convincing to go abroad.
Students can email him
or friend him on Facebook.
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