Dr. Farid Shafiyev is the Chairman of the Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center), a position he has held since February 2019. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer at ADA University, where he teaches international relations and foreign policy.

Dr. Shafiyev was educated at Baku State University, where he studied history and law. He later earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Ph.D. in History from Carleton University.

He served in the Armed Forces from 1987 to 1989 and began his professional career in 1994 at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, at the Institute of Ethnography and Archaeology.

In 1996, Dr. Shafiyev joined the Azerbaijani Foreign Service. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baku, he worked in the Political-Military Issues Division and the United Nations Affairs Division. His diplomatic assignments included postings to the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the United Nations in New York City from 1998 to 2001 and the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Canada from 2005 to 2009.

In 2009, Dr. Shafiyev was appointed Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Canada, serving until July 2014. He subsequently served as Ambassador of Azerbaijan to the Czech Republic from July 2014 to February 2019.

Dr. Shafiyev is the author of numerous op-eds, articles, and academic publications, including the book Resettling the Borderlands: State Relocations and Ethnic Conflict in the South Caucasus, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2018.