Dr. Grigor Vardanyan is a Co-founder and Deputy CEO of Green Food LLC, a strawberry farming and trading company established in 2018. He is also a part-time research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. His primary research interests include Arabic Studies, focusing on contemporary history of Syria and the Syrian Alawite community. Dr. Vardanyan is an author of a monograph, “The Alawi Community in Syria: From Minority to Political-Military Elite” (2017) and of numerous scholarly articles on Syrian history. In addition, from 2010-2017, Dr. Vardanyan worked as an assistant in International Relations and Military Education at the Office of the First Deputy Minister of Defense of Armenia. Prior to joining the Ministry of Defense, Dr. Vardanyan held different positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Diaspora of Armenia. Dr. Vardanyan holds a Ph.D. in Arabic Studies from the Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (2011), as well as an MA (2008) and a BA (2006) in Arabic Studies from Yerevan State University. He is also an Ancien of NATO Defense College (2015), accomplished the International Defense Resource Management Course at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA (2013) and the British Military English Course at Saint John University in York, UK (2012).