Hassan was born in Mogadishu and grew up between Somalia, Kenya, and eventually Ottawa — an itinerary that gave him early fluency in four languages and a lifelong interest in what language does to the mind. He completed his doctorate at McGill studying how linguistic structure shapes the capacity of working memory, and has since developed that work into a broad research program on how the particular shape of a language — its morphology, its syntax, its demands on retrieval — affects what speakers can hold in mind and how quickly they can reason. He joined the Institute in 2018.