Q&A with Academy Board Member Armen Avanessians
Published February 4, 2025
Armen Avanessians is the former Head and Chief Investment Officer, Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s (GSAM) Quantitative Investment Strategies Group and is currently a member of the Board of Governors for The New York Academy of Sciences. With an educational background in electrical engineering, and extensive professional experience in finance, he brings a valuable perspective to the Board. We interviewed him to learn more about his background, how engineering principles can be applied to the world of finance, and why he chose to get involved with the Academy.
*some quotes have been edited for length and clarity
What does being a member of the Academy’s board mean to you?
The highest value I can find is being useful — offering my support in ways that inspire and bring value to others.
How did you first become interested in the Academy’s work?
Several colleagues of mine have served on the Board. I became more engaged when Nick Dirks, who knew me from Columbia University, joined the Board. He brought me in to help reimagine the Academy. Given my engineering background and experience on other boards like Columbia, MIT, the National Museum of Mathematics, and FIRST robotics, Nick felt I could add value, and I joined with that intent.
How does your personal or professional background inform your involvement or your commitment to the Academy?
I started as an electrical engineer at Bell Laboratories in the early eighties, working on chip design. Bell Labs had a unique model: research work, even theoretical, could be capitalized by AT&T. After the divestiture, that model broke, and AT&T shifted to focusing on making money more directly. This shift led me to be interested in understanding money itself, which ultimately led me to Goldman Sachs. Finance, at its core, is the study of money, and I saw an opportunity to apply my quantitative skills to this field, helping create what became known as “strats”.
Strats brought the scientific method—making observations to build models that explain the past and testing their ability to predict the future—into finance.
Which is the one Academy program or initiative that excites you the most. And why?
Education. My focus across philanthropic efforts, from MIT to the Fund for Armenian Relief, has always been on science education—at all levels. Whether it’s inspiring children in grade school or engaging university students, I believe science is more than subjects like physics or chemistry. It’s a mindset, a method for understanding the world.
Engaging young people in the scientific method—observing, building models, testing ideas—helps them gain knowledge, and that excites me most about the Academy.
