Dr. Murray Bessette is director of academic programs at the Alexander Hamilton Society, where he leads its college chapter-based programs and national fellowships.

Bessette previously served as senior vice president of education at Common Sense Society from 2021 to 2024. In this role, he was responsible for designing and implementing its fellowship programs. He was also responsible for creating and directing its K-12 initiatives, which included a complete charter school curriculum, the American Civics Project, and a comprehensive series of teacher development programs—including seminars, workshops, and webinars—and for planning and executing the programming for its academic events.

Prior to joining Common Sense Society, Bessette served as director of academic programs at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation from 2016 to 2021, where he established its academic programs—K-12, college, China studies and Poland studies—in the lead up to the opening of the Victims of Communism Museum. He also was lead program organizer of the Foundation’s flagship events, which regularly include participation of US Representatives, US Senators, and former presidents and other senior governmental officials from Central and Eastern Europe.

Before joining the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Bessette was a tenured associate professor at Morehead State University where he taught and mentored undergraduate and graduate students, coordinated the undergraduate government program, and led the development and implementation of a new MA in government, as well as undergraduate and graduate certificates in intelligence studies.

Bessette has edited or authored numerous books, chapters, articles, and reviews; organized and presented at dozens of international and national conferences and panels; and co-directed more than $3 million in competitive US federal grants.

He was a Lincoln fellow of the Claremont Institute, an academic fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and has served as co-director of the Bluegrass State Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence, president of the Kentucky Political Science Association, and an academic advisory board member of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions. He serves on the board of The Remembrance Society and the American Civics Academy.

He holds a doctorate in political science and a master’s in American politics from Claremont Graduate University, as well as an executive certificate in counter-terrorism studies from the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel.