ASPIRANTUM

Ruzanna Gasparyan will participate in ASPIRANTUM's 2026 Armenian language summer school.

Ruzanna is a PhD student in History at the University of California, Irvine, researching the energy crisis and transitional period of the 1990s in Armenia. She holds an MA in History from Sonoma State University. She's participating in ASPIRANTUM's program to strengthen her research skills in Armenian, and is very happy to be returning to Yerevan this summer, especially to enjoy the apricots.

Maya DaSilva will participate in ASPIRANTUM's 2026 Persian language summer school.

Maya is finishing her degree in International Relations and Persian at the University of St Andrews. She is originally from Canada, grew up partly in the U.S., and now studies in the UK. She is very excited to meet everyone!

Leena Ghannam will participate in ASPIRANTUM's 2026 Persian language summer school.

Leena is a Ph.D. student in Art History at Stanford University, focusing on Islamic art and architecture in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean. She holds an M.A. in Islamic Art and Architecture from the American University in Cairo (2025) and a B.A. from the University of Michigan (2020) with a double major in History of Art and English and a minor in Museum Studies. Leena is originally from the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, and looks forward to exploring Armenia and developing her Persian to better understand Persian epigraphy, manuscripts, and poetry.