Diego Benning Wang, PhD
Visiting scholar, Harvard University
I am a historian of the Caucasus, Armenia, Central Asia, and the Russian North in the modern period.
I received a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University (2024), an M.A. in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies from Columbia University (2016), and a B.A. in Russian and Slavic Studies from New York University (2014). I am expected to receive an A.M. in Armenian studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University in 2027.
I am currently a visiting scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. I have previously served as a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies at Columbia University, conducted research at the Russian, East European, Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and taught at Princeton University, Kean University, Union County College, and Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology. I have held short-term research fellowships at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, the Caucasus Institute (Yerevan, Armenia), and the Caucasus Research Resource Center - Armenia.
My works have appeared in various peer-reviewed journals, including Nationalities Papers, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Caucasus Survey, Ab Imperio, Slavic & East European Journal, and The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review.
My research topics include nationalism, national identity, national cultural expression, totalitarianism, geopolitics, mass atrocities, and inter-ethnic conflict.
I received a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University (2024), an M.A. in Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies from Columbia University (2016), and a B.A. in Russian and Slavic Studies from New York University (2014). I am expected to receive an A.M. in Armenian studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University in 2027.
I am currently a visiting scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. I have previously served as a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies at Columbia University, conducted research at the Russian, East European, Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and taught at Princeton University, Kean University, Union County College, and Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology. I have held short-term research fellowships at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, the Caucasus Institute (Yerevan, Armenia), and the Caucasus Research Resource Center - Armenia.
My works have appeared in various peer-reviewed journals, including Nationalities Papers, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Caucasus Survey, Ab Imperio, Slavic & East European Journal, and The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review.
My research topics include nationalism, national identity, national cultural expression, totalitarianism, geopolitics, mass atrocities, and inter-ethnic conflict.
In June 2026, I co-founded the Association for the Advancement of the North Caucasus Studies (AANCS), where I currently serve as the Vice President.
I speak, read, write, and conduct research in thirteen languages -- English, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Italian, Armenian (Eastern and Western), Georgian, Uyghur, Uzbek, and Belarusian (in addition, I also have reading proficiency in Classical Chinese, Crimean Tatar, Kazakh, and various other Turkic languages and am currently studying Classical Armenian and Chaghatay at Harvard).