Ashot Sarkisov received the Global Energy Prize in 2014 for his outstanding contribution to improvement of nuclear energy safety and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Ashot Sarkisov devoted his entire professional career to solution of these problems. His career started at the Sevastopol Higher Naval Engineering School, where from the mid-1950s he gave lectures on ” Shipboard nuclear power plants”. His interest in marine nuclear energy was largely related to his naval service. Having passed the Great Patriotic War and graduated from the Higher Naval Engineering School with the rank of lieutenant commander in 1950, Prof Sarkisov served in the Baltic Fleet between 1950 to 1954. In 1956, he defended his Ph.D. thesis and began to conduct scientific research, the results of which were presented in 1964 in the world’s first monograph on non-stationary and emergency operation modes of the shipboard nuclear power plants.
After defending his doctoral dissertation in 1968 and becoming the head of the Sevastopol Higher Naval Engineering School in 1971, Ashot Sarkisov initiated creation of a scientific school on the dynamics and safety of shipboard nuclear power plants. Being the author of 12 monographs, 17 inventions and over 280 scientific articles, he mentored 11 Doctors of Sciences and over 40 candidates of sciences. At the same time, he continued his own research, the subject-matter of which significantly expanded over time and began to cover such areas as safety of underground nuclear power plants, operation of nuclear power plants with the thermoelectric energy converters, and environmental and radiation hazards during decommissioning and disposal of nuclear submarines and nuclear power plants.
Prof Sarkisov devoted the last 30 years of his life to the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBRAE RAS) where he worked with small-scale nuclear energy as well as a Strategic Master Plan for the integrated dismantlement of nuclear submarines and their infrastructure.
Ashot Sarkisov was the editor-in-chief of the journal “Arctic: Ecology and Economics” (2011-2021), as well as a member of a number of research organisations, including the Russian-American Public Advisory Council (KAROS), the Scientific Council for Ocean Hydrophysics at the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Interdepartmental Scientific Council of the RAS and Rosaviakosmos on space energy.
The Global Energy Association expresses their condolences to the family and friends of Ashot Sarkisov.
