Richard Gable Hovannisian[1] (Armenian: Ռիչարդ Հովհաննիսյան, November 9, 1932 – July 10, 2023) was an American historian and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

His father, Kaspar Gavroian, was born in 1901 in the village of Bazmashen (Pazmashen; now Sarıçubuk, Elâzığ), near Kharpert in the Ottoman Empire.

[6] He was also an associate professor of history at Mount St. Mary's College, Los Angeles, from 1966 to 1969, having joined UCLA in 1962.

Hovannisian was a Guggenheim Fellow who has received numerous honors for his scholarship, civic activities, and advancement of Armenian Studies.

[7] Hovannisian served on the board of directors of nine scholarly and civic organizations, including the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation; the International Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide; International Alert; the Foundation for Research on Armenian Architecture; and the Armenian National Institute (ANI).

[9] From 2000, Hovannisian oversaw and edited a number of individual studies on the former Armenian-populated towns and cities of the Ottoman Empire.

[12] In a 2006 interview Hovannisian criticized the Armenian government of then President Robert Kocharyan for its authoritarian nature and added that Armenia "must not become a failed state.