Hrag Papazian and Narek Ohanyan Appointed Full Time Faculty

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YEREVAN, Armenia — The American University of Armenia (AUA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Hrag Papazian and Narek Ohanyan as full-time faculty for the upcoming academic year 2023-24. Their dedication and contributions to their respective colleges have earned them this well-deserved appointment.

Hrag Papazian, previously an adjunct lecturer at the College of Humanities & Social Sciences (CHSS), has been an invaluable asset to the AUA community. Holding a DPhil in Anthropology (2020) from the University of Oxford, Hrag’s academic achievements have been exceptional. His dissertation, “Contesting Armenianness: plurality, segregation and multilateral boundary making among Armenians in Contemporary Turkey,” has earned him the David Parkin Prize in Ethnographic Materials by the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford, as well as an honorary mention by the Society for Armenian Studies. Moreover, he has been a Promise Armenian Institute postdoctoral fellow at UCLA and a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Divinity. Hrag has also served as Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at California State University in Fresno. His diverse research interests encompass ethnicity, religion, diaspora, migration, politics, and issues of self-identification and boundary-making. Notably, his most recent publications have appeared in Citizenship Studies (with Salim Aykut Öztürk) and Ethnopolitics (available here and here).

On the occasion of his new appointment as Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Hrag asserts, “To sum up the highlight of my experience at AUA, I would turn to one word: students. Having intermittently taught over 5 academic terms at AUA, I have had a very fulfilling experience thanks to them, one that always made me want to come back whenever I was away. They helped me learn a lot about my field, about the vocation of teaching, and, of course, about Armenia. Not to sound dramatic, but they often gave me meaning and, at times, even hope.”

During his time as a student, Narek Ohanyan (MSE ’16) started working at the Central Bank of Armenia (2015-2017). Following that, he provided consulting services to reputable international organizations like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank on several projects. This June, he achieved a milestone by receiving his Ph.D. in Economics from the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. Narek’s dedication to his studies and research has not gone unnoticed, as evidenced by his recent research, “Measuring Monetary Policy: Rules versus Discretion,” published in the Empirical Economics journal, “Best Paper” award by the Armenian Economic Association at its annual meetings in 2016 and 2017, and the Grigor Artsruni prize in 2023.

Likewise, Narek Ohanyan expresses his gratitude for this opportunity, stating, “I have had the experience of teaching and conducting research abroad, but neither is as satisfying as working with Armenian students and topics relevant to our country.”

Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia, affiliated with the University of California, and accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission in the United States. AUA provides local and international students with Western-style education through top-quality undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs, promotes research and innovation, encourages civic engagement and community service, and fosters democratic values.