TORONTO — The Board of Directors of the Zoryan Institute has unanimously appointed Professor Bedross Der Matossian as Director of Genocide Research, succeeding the late Professor Vahakn N. Dadrian, who led the Institute’s Genocide Research Program for more than a decade and left an enduring scholarly legacy.
Born and raised in the Old City of Jerusalem, Bedross Der Matossian is Professor of Modern Middle East History and the Hymen Rosenberg Professor in Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2008 and has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Chicago. In 2026, he was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of his pioneering research on mass violence.
An internationally recognized scholar of the Armenian Genocide, the late Ottoman Empire, and modern Middle Eastern history, Professor Der Matossian is the author of several acclaimed books, including Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire and The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century. He is also the editor of Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century and Shattered Truths: Denial of Genocide in the Digital Age, and the co-editor, with Edita Gzoyan, of The Concentration Camps of the Armenian Genocide.
Upon his appointment, Professor Der Matossian stated:
“I am deeply honored and humbled by the confidence the Board of the Zoryan Institute has placed in me. To follow in the footsteps of Professor Vahakn N. Dadrian is both an extraordinary privilege and a profound responsibility. His scholarship transformed the field of genocide studies and set a standard of intellectual rigor and moral courage that continues to inspire generations of researchers. His are truly monumental shoes to fill, and I accept this role with humility and with a steadfast commitment to advancing the Institute’s mission through rigorous scholarship, meaningful collaboration, and the pursuit of historical truth.”
Professor Der Matossian’s appointment marks a new chapter in the Institute’s longstanding commitment to advancing the study of genocide through rigorous scholarship, international collaboration, and public education, while building upon the distinguished legacy established by Professor Dadrian.
