In a March 2016 interview with La Presse, Hansen said he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when he was 8 or 9 years old.

[4] Hansen attended the University of Texas at Dallas for one year, beginning in September 2011, on a chess scholarship, representing the school in intercollegiate tournaments.

[10] In 2011, Hansen tied for first place in the Canadian Closed Championship with a score of 7½/9 points, but lost a two-game playoff to Bator Sambuev, who was declared champion.

In a 4 September 2012 video interview at the Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Hansen reflected on his 2011 World Cup experience: "I got paired against Gashimov and he killed me.

[citation needed] At the Isthmia Open tournament at Vrachati a few days later, Hansen scored his first Grandmaster norm with a tie for 1st–3rd place.

[16] Hansen achieved his final Grandmaster norm in the 40th Chess Olympiad, in Istanbul, Turkey, in August–September 2012,[17] where he made his debut on the Canadian national team.

[18] Hansen tied for first place at the October 2012 American Continental Championship in Mar del Plata, Argentina, with Julio Granda Zuñiga, Alexander Shabalov, Diego Flores, and Gregory Kaidanov.

[23] In the 2015 Canadian Zonal Championship, Hansen shared first place with Leonid Gerzhoy and Tomas Krnan, who was declared the winner on tiebreak.

[24] In the online tournament Airthings Masters in February 2022, Hansen defeated both Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the preliminary rounds and qualified for the knockout phase.