2024 Election

As an art historian, I am deeply honored to hold the first lectureship in Persian Studies at the University of Geneva, funded by the Mohammad Mossadegh Foundation (as of August 2024). In this role, I aim to promote Geneva’s rich yet underexplored collections of Persian art, nurture the next generation of MA students, and elevate the city’s status as a key European center for Persian Studies. I look forward to the collaborative opportunities this position will foster and consider the AIS biennials an ideal platform for exchanging ideas, reconnecting with colleagues, and launching new projects.
I earned my PhD from Université d’Aix-Marseille (in France) in December 2014. My research focuses on early modern and modern Persian painting, as well as the collecting of Persian art in 20th-century France. I am the author of ʿAli Qoli Jebādār et l’occidentalisme safavide: une étude sur les peintures dites farangi sāzi, leurs milieux et commanditaires sous Shāh Soleimān (Brill, 2018) and have published several articles on painting production, female patronage, and 17th-century Isfahani society. More recently, in August 2021, I published Shâhnâmeh de Ferdowsi: Le Livre des Rois persans (Pocket and Revue des Deux Mondes), which examines the enduring significance of Ferdowsi’s Shahnama in Persian art and its resonance with Jules Mohl’s French translation.
In 2023, I had the privilege of guest-editing a special issue of Manazir Journal titled “The Idea of the Just Ruler in Persianate Art and Material Culture” (5/2023). This issue explored the role of art and architecture in shaping the image of just rulers in Persianate societies, spanning Central Asia to Eastern Anatolia between the 14th and 19th centuries. Notably, the issue featured contributions from four scholars based in Iran, among eight articles.
During the 2023–2024 academic year, I served as a visiting professor at the École du Louvre in Paris, where I taught courses on Iranian, Mughal, and Ottoman art from the 16th to 19th centuries. Additionally, I am a Soudavar Memorial Foundation alumnus, having previously held a lectureship on the art and architecture of the Three Gunpowder Empires at the University of Geneva from 2019 to 2021. Since October 2021, with the support of various institutions, including the Soudavar Memorial Foundation, I have been researching the Jean Pozzi PersianIslamic Collection in Geneva and French museums. This research will form the basis of my second monograph and is anticipated to lead to my Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HdR) in France.
I am honored by the nomination to the AIS Council. If elected, I am committed to amplifying the voices and contributions of scholars in Iran, especially emerging and earlycareer researchers. I believe the AIS Journal offers an excellent platform to showcase their work, and I will work to encourage greater participation from these scholars in AIS biennials. These meetings have been invaluable in shaping my academic path, beginning with my first participation in Vienna in 2016. A panel I chaired at the first AIS online conference in 2023 introduced me to several exceptional young scholars from Iran, with whom I am now coorganizing an international hybrid event set for February 2025. Finally, as a Franco-Iranian scholar teaching in Geneva, I will do my best to connect Francophone scholars and students with the AIS community worldwide
 

Thank you for considering me for membership in the Council of AIS. I am Assistant Professor of History at Berry College, a primarily undergraduate institution located in the state of Georgia. I received my PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018. My current research focuses on urbanization and gender in the southern Caucasus and Iran in the early twentieth century, with a particular focus on how urbanization and industrialization in Baku created a politically and socially transformative environment that reverberated throughout the broader region. My research has appeared in Iranian Studies, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and Journal of Women’s History. In my research and teaching I seek to better integrate Iranian Studies and Central Eurasian Studies, bridging a gap forged by Cold War area studies paradigms that separated scholarship on the Caucasus and Central Asia from the Middle East. At Berry I teach courses on Middle Eastern, Soviet, public, and world history. As a professor at a PUI, I am passionate about introducing Iranian Studies to undergraduate audiences.
As a faculty member at a small college, I am the sole scholar at my institution whose research and teaching engages with the Middle East, Islam, and the former Soviet sphere (I get quoted in the student newspaper quite a bit.) Conferences like AIS are invaluable resources for scholars like me to engage with other experts, exchange ideas, and keep abreast of the latest developments in the field. As a member of the AIS Council, I would advocate for expanding resources for scholars in similar positions so that the comradery they enjoy every other year at the conference can be sustained throughout the years through online learning communities. I would also be an advocate for developing resources for scholars teaching Iranian studies to undergraduates. I teach at a school in the rural south with a student body primarily from the region; students come to my class with deep misunderstandings of the Middle East and Iran in particular. I consider it imperative to my mission as an educator to help students better understand the history and contemporary realities of Iran so that they leave my classroom with greater cultural empathy and the tools necessary to see through misinformation. AIS could play an important role in providing resources to undergraduate educators, especially those who teach world history surveys and do not necessarily have expertise on Iran, so that they can effectively and accurately teach its history.

Dear AIS members,
I am honored to be nominated to serve on the AIS Council. I am a professor of Persian at Portland State University, where I founded the Persian program in 2005 and have been the program head ever since. I am the author of Persian in Use: An Elementary Textbook of Language and Culture published by Leiden University Press, as part of their Iranian Studies Series. Due to popular demand, the book has been reprinted five times (2005-2022) and has been translated into German by the Iranian Studies team at Bamberg University. I have also edited and co-edited several volumes such as Iranian and Minority Languages at Home and in Diaspora (De Gruyter Mouton, 2023) and The Oxford Handbook of Persian Linguistics (Oxford University Press, 2018).
I have been a member of the AIS since 2004, when I first attended the biennial meeting in Bethesda, Maryland as a Ph.D. student. Since then, the AIS has been instrumental in shaping my career and professional activities. I found life-long mentors within the organization, and I have continued to collaborate with colleagues I met through the AIS. I have been involved in the AIS in various capacities: I served on the Conference Program Committee during 2016-2022, and I was the Inaugural Associate Editor of Linguistics for the Journal of Iranian Studies (Cambridge University Press) during 2019-2023. I also served as the President of the American Association of Teachers of Persian, which works closely with the AIS to promote the instruction of the Persian language, literature and culture in North America. I am delighted to have an opportunity to serve the organization as a Council member. I would mainly like to focus on continuing the footsteps of the previous leadership, some of whom are now retired, in creating mentoring opportunities for graduate students, not only in their respective academic fields, but also in terms of fostering their abilities to build their portfolio for finding a meaningful career.

I am honoured and grateful to have been nominated to serve on the council of the Association for Iranian Studies.
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, based in Vienna, where I research twentieth century Iranian cultural and political history. My first monograph, based on my PhD research at the University of Exeter, was published in 2020 and explored the cultural politics of late Pahlavi Iran through the celebrations marking the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire in 1971. More recently, my research has focused on Iran’s global interactions during the Cold War and the era of decolonization, particularly its relations with Africa. My second monograph on Iran’s interactions with Africa in the 1950s, 60s and 70s has just been published by Cambridge University Press. I am also co-editor, together with Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, of the recently published volume Iran and Global Decolonisation: Politics and Resistance After Empire.
I am currently writing my third monograph, an intellectual biography of Shojaeddin Shafa, and have edited a new English edition of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s Towards the Great Civilization, based on an unpublished manuscript which was found in the personal archive of Shojaeddin Shafa in Paris. This will be published later this year. I have co-organised multiple workshops and symposiums on modern Iranian history at UCLA and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Additionally, I regularly peer review articles and books from various publishers about modern Iranian and Middle Eastern political, social and cultural history.  
I first joined AIS in 2017 while a PhD student, and since then have participated in all in-person and online events organised by the Association, presenting papers as well as organising and chairing panels. I have also published three articles in Iranian Studies. As an active member of AIS and the broader Iranian studies scholarly community, if I had the opportunity to serve on the council, I would work hard to support the activities of the Association and help to develop new initiatives, particularly to facilitate closer engagement with students and academics in Iran.

I am a graduate student in Cultural Studies with a specialization in Critical Gender Studies at UC San Diego. My research interests include social movements, new media, socially engaged art, the performance of gender, and women’s everyday life in post-revolutionary Iran. I hold an MLitt in Middle Eastern Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and a BA in Persian Literature from the University of Tehran. Throughout my academic journey, I have actively engaged in various student initiatives. At the University of Tehran, I was a member of the Cultural Society in the Literature Department, where I helped organize various workshops and cultural events. These initiatives fostered a community for students interested in contemporary literature, particularly works that were often absent from traditional curricula. At UC San Diego, I serve on the editorial board of Alchemy, a student-run Journal of Translation based in the Literature Department. These experiences have made me believe in the incredible potential of student-led initiatives.

Having studied both inside and outside Iran, I am acutely aware of the unique challenges faced by different student groups, particularly regarding accessibility. If elected as a Student Representative for AIS, I am committed to addressing these challenges. I would advocate for more funding opportunities for conference attendance and exploring ways to facilitate virtual participation for those affected by visa restrictions or travel bans. Furthermore, I am dedicated to amplifying student voices and fostering a more inclusive and dynamic community within our field—where student perspectives are heard and actively contribute to shaping the future of our association. I also aim to bridge the gap between students and scholars in Iran and the diaspora, building networks across global universities, including those in Iran. My goal is to promote collaboration across different fields and subfields, while seeking support for junior scholars. As someone who has presented at various conferences, I understand both the excitement and challenges that come with sharing one’s work. I am passionate about creating more opportunities for students to present their research, exchange ideas, and connect with peers and established scholars. Ultimately, I aim to channel this energy into launching new initiatives that meet the evolving needs of our student community. Together, I believe we can create a vibrant academic environment that supports and uplifts all students.  

Growing up in Bandar Abbas, I found solace in art and literature during the long, hot summers. Though my academic path initially led me to mathematics and engineering, my passion for creative expression drew me to architecture—a discipline where I could bridge technical rigor with artistic vision. Throughout my educational journey (BA, MA, PhD), I was committed to integrating interdisciplinary approaches into engineering, evident in projects such as a center for women’s studies and a cultural center. After years of practicing as a registered architect in Iran, I felt compelled to pivot towards the humanities. At Brown University, I am pursuing a PhD in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and earning a certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Alongside my academic pursuits, I co-curated exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the RISD Museum in Providence and wrote catalog entries for Persian manuscripts in the Minassian Collection at Brown University and the Asian art department at the RISD Museum. I also designed and taught a summer course on gender and spaces in modern architecture at Brown. I am eager to carry this interdisciplinary work forward, contributing to meaningful dialogues and developments across these fields.