Professor Hovik Panosyan graduated in Biology from Yerevan State University (YSU) in 1999. He received his PhD in microbiology from Institute of Botany of NAS of Armenia in 2003. He has been a faculty member at YSU since 2002 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011. His main research area is Microbial Ecology and Biology of Extremophilic Microbes. He has been awarded numerous research fellowships and awards including FEBS Short-Term Fellowship (2009 and 2004), FEMS Research Fellowship (2009), NFSAT (2011) DAAD (2013) and has participated in international research together with USA, European and Asian partners. Dr. Panosyan is actively engaged in studying of microbial community of extreme environments (terrestrial geothermal springs, alkali-saline soils, subterranean salt deposits, copper and molybdenum mines distributed on the territory of Armenia) based on culture-dependent and molecular techniques. He has published more than 60 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, 4 books and 25 chapters.