Dr. Armik Mirzayan is professor of Linguistics in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. After earning a master's in physics, he moved into graduate work in linguistics and language documentation, receiving his Ph.D. in Linguistics from University of Colorado-Boulder in 2010. The focus of his dissertation was on Lakota intonation and prosody. Since then, Dr. Mirzayan’s research in linguistics has primarily centered within the sub-areas of phonetics and phonology, motivated by theoretical and applied questions in linguistics, language documentation, and language revitalization. From a theoretical perspective, one of the central goals of this research is to broaden empirical connections within phonetics and phonology through fieldwork in geographic-linguistic areas of Siouan- and Caddoan-speaking areas of North America. From an applied perspective, the work contributes to language revitalization efforts by the communities of scholars who work on documentation, description, and teaching of Lakota/Dakota/Nakota, Hidatsa, Wichita, and Arikara - all Indigenous languages of North America. Dr. Mirzayan has also worked as an instructor and consultant for the Dakota-Lakota Summer Institutes at Sitting Bull College (Fort Yates, North Dakota), and has helped conduct Arikara intensive summer language and linguistics courses at the Nueta-Hidatsa-Sahnish College (New Town, North Dakota).

Currently, at the University of Virginia, Dr. Mirzayan teaches courses in linguistics, including languages of the world, acoustic phonetics, phonology, linguistic field methods, linguistic typology, Native American languages, and semantics-pragmatics, among others. He collaborates with colleagues on linguistic projects on Hidatsa and Lakota (both Siouan), as well as on language pedagogy and language material development with Wichita (Caddoan).