Dr.  Azarian received his Ph. D. in mathematics from Saint Louis University in 1985.  Since then, he has been at the University of Evansville where he is presently a professor of mathematics.

In 2025, the American Mathematical Society (AMS), established the Mohammad K. Azarian Prize for Mathematical Reviews Reviewers, and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), created the Mohammad K. Azarian Scholar Award.  With these two honors, Professor Azarian becomes the first Muslim, the first Iranian American, and the third mathematician to have two distinguished mathematics awards named in his honor by AMS and MAA.

Professor Azarian served on the AMS Committee on the Human Rights of Mathematicians (2021-2023).  In 2023, he was the chair of the committee and was the AMS Representative on the American Association for the Advancement of Science Human Rights Coalition.  Dr. Azarian served on the Executive Board of the Indiana Section of Mathematical Association of America (2001-2007), and he is the recipient of the 2017 MAA-Indiana Distinguished Service Award.

Professor Azarian served four years as a Discipline Peer Reviewer for the Fulbright Scholar Program (2015-2018) sponsored by the United States Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and he is a reviewer for the American Mathematical Society’s Mathematical Reviews (MathSciNet) and the European Mathematical Society’s zbMATH Open.

Dr. Azarian was a UE Global Scholar (2007-2008), and he was the recipient of the UE Berger Award for Scholarship (2019).  Dr. Azarian is currently on the editorial board of two journals and previously served on the editorial boards of three other journals. He also referees papers for six other periodicals.