David Hackett

Areas of Specialization: Political violence, authoritarianism, human rights/international law, geopolitics of Eurasia (Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia/Ukraine)

David Hackett is a fourth-year Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Boston University. His primary research interests surround political violence and civilian welfare in conflict, historic narratives and national political identities, and the geopolitics of Eurasia. He has produced research on political violence surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and regularly meets individuals to conduct interviews along the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact.

David has worked for the Foreign Ministry of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) to advocate for populations under threat of violence, assisting in publishing a report with the Lemkin Institute (LIGP) that warned of political violence weeks before its territorial dissolution. Since 2023, David has since worked at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute as an affiliate researcher, being awarded the Lemkin Scholarship in 2025. He is an alumnus of the Zoryan Institute’s Genocide & Human Rights University Program in Toronto and the Saperstein Symposium at Wayne State University in Detroit.

David earned a dual B.A./M.A. in International Relations from University of Massachusetts, Boston in 2022. He has seven years of teaching experience and regularly teaches Political Science courses as an instructor of record at BU and UMass Boston, working to develop accessible curricula while advising undergraduate students on their own projects.