u/dssevag

The Armenian who invented the ATM

Luther George Simjian was a prolific inventor with more than 200 patents.

His most famous invention was the Bankograph, an early automated banking machine and precursor to the modern ATM.

But that wasn’t all. During World War II, he also invented a flight-training simulator for aviators.

And here’s my favorite part: when a New York bank tested his automated banking machine, Simjian later recalled that some of its most enthusiastic customers were gamblers and sex workers, who preferred banking without having to face a teller. Basically Bitcoin 10 years ago. 🤷‍♂️

So next time you withdraw money from an ATM, remember it’s thanks to an Armenian. 🇦🇲
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The Armenian who is the founder of the modern practice of plastic surgery

Varaztad Kazanjian was a surgeon who became one of the pioneers of modern reconstructive and plastic surgery.

During World War I, he treated soldiers with devastating facial injuries and developed new techniques for rebuilding the jaw, face, and mouth. His work helped establish many of the principles that modern plastic and reconstructive surgery still builds on today.

He later became Harvard Medical School’s first Professor of Plastic Surgery, cementing his place as one of the field’s most important early figures.

So if you’ve ever wondered how modern reconstructive surgery became possible, an Armenian built the foundation. 🇦🇲👨‍⚕️

The Armenian whose name is on the periodic table

Yuri Oganessian is a nuclear physicist and one of the world’s leading pioneers in the study of superheavy elements. His research helped push the periodic table farther than scientists once thought possible.

His contributions were so significant that element 118 was officially named Oganesson (Og) in his honor in 2016. Even more remarkably, Oganessian was still alive when the element was named after him, something that has happened only extremely rarely in the history of the periodic table.

So yes, there is literally an Armenian name sitting at number 118 on the periodic table. 🇦🇲⚛️

Madeline Sharafian is a filmmaker, animator and story artist at Pixar. She worked on films including Coco, Onward and Turning Red before moving into directing.

In 2020, she wrote and directed Pixar’s short Burrow, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film.

She later co-directed Pixar’s Elio, becoming the first Armenian to direct a Pixar feature film and only the third woman in Pixar’s history to do so.

The Armenian scientist who won a Nobel Prize for helping explain how we feel touch

His team discovered PIEZO1 and PIEZO2, tiny sensors in our cells that help the body detect physical pressure and touch. In simple terms, his work helped explain how something touching your skin gets turned into a signal your brain can understand.

For this discovery, Patapoutian shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Armenian-American behind some of Hollywood’s most famous movies

Steven Zaillian is an Armenian-American screenwriter, director and producer from Fresno, California. He is considered one of Hollywood’s most accomplished screenwriters and won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Schindler’s List.

Movies he wrote or co-wrote:

Schindler’s List
Gangs of New York
Moneyball
The Irishman
American Gangster
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Awakenings
Hannibal
Clear and Present Danger

Movies he directed:

Searching for Bobby Fischer
A Civil Action
All the King’s Men

He also created, wrote and directed the acclaimed series The Night Of and Ripley, winning an Emmy for directing Ripley.

So if you’ve watched great American cinema over the last few decades, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve already watched something written by an Armenian. 🇦🇲🎬

The Armenian engineer helping make autonomous flight safer

Naira Hovakimyan is an Armenian engineer and mathematician educated at Yerevan State University who went on to become a leading researcher in autonomous systems and aviation.
One of her biggest contributions is helping develop L1 adaptive control, a technology that allows aircraft and other autonomous systems to react quickly when something unexpected happens, like strong winds, changing conditions, or the system behaving differently than expected.

Her work has been tested on real aircraft and has involved organizations including NASA and the U.S. Air Force.

Cyrill Demian was an Armenian inventor and instrument maker who, together with his sons, created the accordion in Vienna. In 1829, he patented the instrument under the name “accordion,” giving us the ancestor of the instrument we know today.

Fun fact: Demian was born in Armenopolis, today known as Gherla in Romania. Armenopolis was a Transylvanian town developed by Armenian settlers and became an important Armenian community in the region, which is why the city historically carried a name meaning “Armenian city.”

So next time you hear an accordion playing, you know who to thank. An Armenian. 🪗🇦🇲

Long before Mars rovers became synonymous with NASA, an Armenian engineer named Alexander Kemurdzhian was helping humanity take its first robotic drive on another world.

Kemurdzhian was the chief engineer-designer behind the Soviet Lunokhod rovers. On November 17, 1970, Lunokhod 1 became the first remote-controlled rover to operate on the Moon and the first robotic rover to explore the surface of a world beyond Earth.

So the next time you see a rover rolling across another world, remember that one of the pioneers who made that idea a reality was an Armenian named Alexander Kemurdzhian.

I thought it would be fun to start a little series here called Armenians You Should Know. The idea isn’t to cover the famous Armenians we all already know, but to introduce Armenians and people of Armenian descent who became incredibly successful, influential, or groundbreaking in their fields, yet somehow aren’t widely known in our community.

You probably know Miles Davis. You probably know Louis Armstrong. You might not know that one of the people who helped shape how their music reached the world was an Armenian named George Avakian. George Avakian was a music industry mogul best known as the driving force behind the popularization of concept albums, standardizing long-playing vinyl records, and modern jazz.