Benyamin conducts research and analysis on key foreign policy issues related to Armenia and the South Caucasus. Prior to joining APRI Armenia Benyamin was Lecturer at the Russian-Armenian University and Research Fellow at the American Studies Center of the Yerevan State University. From 2010 to 2019, he served as the Deputy Director and then Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), an Armenian Ministry of Defense think tank, where he focused on Armenian foreign policy, regional geopolitics of the South Caucasus, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. At INSS he supervised the elaboration of more than 100 policy briefs for the Armenian political-military leadership. 

Before serving at the Ministry of Defense, Benyamin worked at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences, where he focused on Armenian foreign policy after 1991. He holds a PhD in history from the Armenian National Academy of Sciences and a certificate in International Security Studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. 

He is the author of more than 250 academic papers and op-eds published in leading Armenian and international journals and media platforms. 

Fields of expertise: Armenia–Azerbaijan relations and negotiation process, geopolitics of the South Caucasus, diversification of Armenia’s foreign policy.