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Alenoush Terian, also called the Mother of Modern Iranian Astronomy. Celebration of her 90th birthday in Tehran, Iran.

Alenoush Terian, was born in an Armenian family on November 9, 1920 in Tehran, Iran. She graduated in physics from the University of Tehran in 1947. Starting her career in physics laboratories of the same university upon graduation and was elected as the chief of laboratory operations in the same year.

She continued her studies at the Sorbonne University in Paris, graduating with a degree in atmospheric physics in 1956. She returned to Iran to work as an assistant professor in thermodynamics at the University of Tehran.

Alenoush Terian got a scholarship to study solar physics for four months in Germany, after which she became Iran’s first female physics professor in 1964.
In 1966, she became a member of the geophysics committee of Tehran University and was elected as the chief of the solar physics studies three years later in 1969.

She was one of the founders of the solar observatory of the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Tehran, where she also worked until her retirement in 1979.

Alenoush Terian is regarded as the first Iranian woman, teacher of physics, and the founder of the first solar telescopic observatory in Iran.

The Iranian-Armenian scientist was honored during a ceremony in Tehran on Nov. 9. Members of the Iranian Parliament and many Iranian-Armenians paid tribute to Alenoush Terian at her 90th birthday. “She always said she had a daughter named sun and a son named moon,” said lawmaker Hassan Ghafourifard, Terian’s former student at Tehran University.

On March 4, 2011, Iran’s first female astronomer Alenoush Terian passed away at the age of 91.