He received his M.A.(1958) degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D.(1966) from University of California, Los Angeles. He was also Associate Professor of History at Mount St. Mary's College, Los Angeles, from 1966 to 1969. In 1987, Professor Hovannisian was appointed as the first holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History at the UCLA. His biographical entries are included in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World among other scholarly and literary reference works.