End of Semester Recap - Fall 2025
Posted by Hailey Garcia
Hey all,
Whoo, the semester’s almost over, isn’t it? Hopefully, it’s been fun and productive and challenging...
read the full semester recap
Q&A With Dr. Naira Hovakimyan, or, Learning to Shout 'DIVERSITY!'
Posted December 2025 by _haileyjay
The Q&A started as most Zoom meetings do: with technical difficulties. Troubleshooting was brief, though, and before long, the participants were curiously inquiring as to Naira's story and research.
Eventually, a different sort of question came up. "How has being a woman affected your career trajectory, if at all?" This proved to have a terribly interesting answer.
Naira reported that she hadn't faced much trouble through her career. She never minded being the only woman in the room,
if she even noticed that everyone else were guys. In fact, at times, she'd avoid people that often discussed diversity.
"I thought women must be making it up," she said with a chuckle. She continued. "But let me tell you the first time I screamed 'Diversity!'"
"A student came into my office--a male student--and told me 'June left.'
And I said 'Yes, and...?'
'You don't get it. June left.'
And I still didn't get it, so I asked again.
He replied 'She was the only girl in the lab. Now it's all guys.'
And I didn't know why that mattered. Do you want girls to look at? You all have your wives, don't you?
He goes 'Well, if we're up at 4am working on a deadline at 11, like a NASA deadline,
and the lab is all guys, then we're all using bad language. But when a girl is there, we watch our language.'
And that's when I first screamed 'Diversity!'"
I think her story is rather fascinating. The fact that it took men cursing in her lab to realize that 'yknow, maybe it's important to have women at the table,' is offbeat. It's certainly the first time I've heard that particular journey! But ultimately, it is a journey. In particular, it is her journey. Even though it's not the way I or my friends came to value diversity, aren't we all shouting 'Diversity!'? People chart myriad paths through life all the time; isn't that what diversity is for? I think we can all learn something from Dr. Hovakimyan. Maybe it's the small things that diversity does. Maybe it's her ground-breaking research in control theory and robotics. But I think the biggest thing we can learn from her story is how to, with thunderous enthusiasm, shout 'DIVERSITY!'
Dr. Naira Hovakimyan is in the Advanced Controls Research Laboratory and is director of the AVIATE Center. Dr. Hovakimyan is known and celebrated for her work in robotics and engineering. She was invited to a Q&A with LSU AWM following her talk in the LSU Control and Optimization Seminar Series.
This article reports a single question from a group Q&A with Dr. Hovakimyan at LSU and does not necessarily reflect her views and opinions. We extend our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Hovakimyan for joining us!
