Professor Richard G. Hovannisian

Professor Hovannisian was born and raised in Tulare, California. He received his BA (1954) and MA (1958) degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and his PhD (1966) from University of California, Los Angeles. He was an Associate Professor of History at Mount St. Mary’s College, Los Angeles, from 1966 to 1969. He has also been on the UCLA faculty since 1962 where he developed both the undergraduate and graduate programs in Armenian History.

In 1987, Professor Hovannisian was appointed as the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA. He is the author or editor of 30 volumes and more than 60 scholarly articles.

He is a founder and six-time president of the Society for Armenian Studies and serves on the editorial boards of five journals and on the boards of directors of ten scholarly and civic organizations, including the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation; the International Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide; International Alert; the Foundation for Research on Armenian Architecture; and the Armenian National Institute.

Professor Hovannisian is a Guggenheim Fellow who has received numerous honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of Armenian Studies.