Azita H. Taleghani is an Associate Professor in Persian language, literature, and linguistics at the University of Toronto. Her research has primarily focused on second-language learners and heritage speakers’ pedagogy, linguistic approaches in modern Persian literature, especially stylistic aspects in the poems of Persian women poets, Persian syntax, and morphology, as well as web-based and online language teaching. She is the associate editor and a member of the editorial board of Women Poets Iranica. She has published a monograph titled Modality, Aspect and Negation in Persian. She is currently working on a monograph, “Grammar of Persian Simple Verbs for Persian Second-Language Learners” and co-editing the volume, “Persian Second Language Pedagogy: New Trends and Innovations.” The two other projects that she has recently started to concentrate on take up language and style in the poems of contemporary Iranian women poets, as well as social deconstruction in the poems of ancient and medieval Iranian women poets. She has published several refereed articles, most recently, “Archaism as an Aesthetic Technique and Linguistics Process,” “Negative Forms of Persian Progressive Tense: Evidence from Monolingual, Second Language Learners and Heritage Speakers,” “Foregrounding and Its Role in Persian Modern Poetry,” “Persian Progressive Tense: Serial Verb Construction or Aspectual Complex Predicate,” and “Persian Linguistics in the 20th Century.”

With a University of Toronto General B.A, I was accepted into a three-year M.A. in the newly established (1961) Department of Islamic Studies (now Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC)). The expanded one-year M.A. included two years of make-up courses in the Islamic Studies undergraduate program. Language proficiency for graduate research was required for graduate study and in addition to the requisite Arabic, I chose Persian and Persian medieval history and culture taught by UK immigrants to the University of Toronto from the British tradition of study of the Middle East, Professors Michael Wickens (Trinity College, Cambridge) and Roger Savory (School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London). Persian was the source language for my thesis on “Religion and Politics Under the First Two Tughluqs, as viewed in the contemporary traditional sources, with special reference to Barani.” (Supervisors: Professor Aziz Ahmad and Professor G. Michael Wickens). Throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies, the focus of the Department of Islamic Studies was the study of medieval Arab, Persian and Turkish history, language, literature, and culture; its program was based on a concept of the medieval Middle East as an entity linked by a common Islamic heritage. I was a Teaching Fellow in the U of T Department of Islamic Studies, an Instructor, a Lecturer, an Assistant Professor and became an Associate Professor in 1978. As a junior appointment, I made the choice to focus my teaching on the modern Middle East and to introduce literature as a source of social history. This was facilitated by an escalating availability of English translations of modern Arabic and Turkish and Persian prose as well as poetry. Literature was a prominent feature of the course syllabi for all the courses I taught such as Middle Eastern Society: Traditional and Modern, Modern Middle Eastern Literatures: A Mirror of Society, Women’s Stories of the Middle East. The students in my courses were curious to learn about a part of the world they were not exposed to in Toronto public or high school curricula or in newspapers and magazines. The influx of Iranian students following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 provided a constituency for courses on Iran and literature in the original Persian. Readings in Modern Persian Literature (in the original Persian) catered to native speakers. The Iranian Short Story in Translation, Iranian Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century, Readings in Modern Persian Literature in Translation were available to the larger undergraduate student population. At the graduate level where Arabic, Turkish and Persian studies became distinct, I offered Literature and Society in 20th c. Iran (in the original Persian), and Persian Literature in the Diaspora. In retirement, I offer a course that I did not previously offer which focuses on the memoirs (originally in Persian and available in English) of Iranian Women: Iranian Women Reveal their Lives: The First Generation.

The theses I supervised reflect the broad academic training I received as a graduate student and were specifically focused on women’s poetry (“Gulten Akin, A Pioneering Turkish Woman Poet: An Analysis of Her Life, Poetry and Poetics Within Their Social, Historical and Literary Context” (defended 2001) and women in their social setting (“The New Armenian Woman’s Writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880-1915” (defended 2000). I served as a co-supervisor for the thesis of the well-known poet Saeed Ghahremani whose granting department was the U of T Centre for Comparative Literature.

I consider as part of my education and research the three trips I made to Iran in the 1970s: three months travelling throughout Iran (except the south) in 1971, two months during 1974, living with a family in Tehran and attending a language school, and in 1976, a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum archeological site near Kermanshah. All three visits provided an opportunity to enlarge the range of society portrayed in literature.

Dominic Parviz Brookshaw is Professor of Persian Literature and Iranian Culture at the University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College, Oxford. He has served on the editorial boards of both Iranian Studies and Middle Eastern Literatures and is a former member of both the Governing Council of the British Institute of Persian Studies and the Council of the Association for Iranian Studies. He has published widely on premodern Persian lyric poetry, women writers of the Qajar era, and twentieth-century Iranian poets. His most recent book, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-century Iran (I.B. Tauris, 2019), won the Saidi-Sirjani Book Award in 2020.

Rohangiz Karachi is an associate professor in the Department of Literature, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran. Her PhD thesis was titled “A Review of the Poetry of Modern Poetesses from the Period of Constitution in Iran.” She has published six books and more than forty articles, mainly about women and poets. Her first poems were published in 1970, and her first volume of poetry, titled Bā kābūs'hā-yi zan (Women’s Nightmares) was published by Murgh-i Āmīn in 1998.” Her second collection of poetry, Chashmhā-yi lūch-i zamīn (Cross-Eyed Earth), was published in 2001 by Nigāh-i Sabz. Her poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is also the author the following monographs: Andīshah nigārān-i zan dar shiʻr-i mashrūtah (An Inquiry into the Poems of Thoughtful Poetesses during the Constitutional Period) (Dānishgāh-i al-Zahrā, 1995); Furūgh, yāghī-i maghmūm (Furūgh, the Sorrowful Rebel) (Rāhiyān-i Andīshah, 1997); and Parvīn Iʻtisāmī : hamrāh bā kitābʹshināsī-i tawsīfī (A Descriptive Bibliography of Parvīn Iʻtisāmī (Dāstānʹsarā, 2004).

Fatemeh Keshavarz is a professor of Persian literature and the director of the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland. She completed her studies at Shiraz University and at the University of London. She taught at Washington University in St. Louis for over twenty years, where she chaired the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from 2004 to 2011. In 2012, Keshavarz joined the University of Maryland as the Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Language and Literature, and director of the Roshan Institute Center for Persian Studies. Keshavarz is the author of several award-winning books, including Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (University of South Carolina Press, 1998), Recite in the Name of the Red Rose (University of South Carolina Press, 2006), and a book of literary analysis and social commentary titled Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran (University of North Carolina Press, 2007). She has also published other books and numerous journal articles. Keshavarz is a published poet in Persian and English and an activist for peace and justice. She was invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly on the significance of cultural education. Her National Public Radio show, “The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi,” earned her the Peabody Award in 2008. In the same year, she received the Herschel Walker Peace and Justice Award.

Zuzanna Olszewska is an associate professor in the social anthropology of the Middle East at the University of Oxford. She specializes in the ethnography of Iran and Afghanistan, with a focus on Afghan refugees in Iran, the Persian-speaking Afghan diaspora, and the anthropology of literature and cultural production. She received her doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Oxford, and has held post-doctoral fellowships at St. John’s College (junior research fellowship, 2008–12) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE Fellow in Anthropology, 2012–13). Her doctoral research was published as The Pearl of Dari: Poetry and Personhood among Young Afghans in Iran (Indiana University Press, 2015), an ethnographic inquiry into how poetic activity reflects changes in youth subjectivity in an Afghan refugee community, based on work with an Afghan cultural organization in Mashhad, Iran. The book won the 2016 Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association and the 2017 Middle East Section Book Award of the American Anthropological Association.

Leila Rahimi Bahmany is a Historical Studies Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She completed her doctorate at the Free University of Berlin. Her first book is titled Mirrors of Entrapment and Emancipation: Forugh Farrokhzad and Sylvia Plath (Leiden University Press, 2015), and it was the recipient of a 2016 Latifeh Yarshater Award. The book juxtaposes the highly ambivalent essence of the mirror metaphor in the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad with that imagery in the oeuvre of Sylvia Plath. The interpretive prowess of the study reinforces the inseparable dynamics of the culturally established configurations of a woman’s self-image and her voice. Her main fields of interest are women’s literature and feminist literary theory and criticism. She has authored several book chapters and encyclopedia articles on Persian literature and Sufism, as well as on Azerbaijani intellectuals. Currently, she is working on her second monograph, dealing with the life and literary works of a modern Iranian female writer, Simin Daneshvar. The monograph aims to present a thorough study of Daneshvar’s biography and her fictional narratives. She also studies modern prose narratives from Iran written in Azeri Turkish.

Photo credit: Andrea Kane, Institute for Advanced Study

Fatemeh Shams is a professor of modern Persian literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She has also taught Persian language and literature at various academic institutions in the United Kingdom, including the University of Oxford, the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her work focuses on the intersection of literature, politics, and society. Shams is interested in the evolution of poetry and patronage in the Persian literary tradition and the representation and transformation of this relationship in modern Iran. She has published articles and book chapters on poetry, patronage, and politics in the Iranian context. Her book, A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-option under the Islamic Republic (Oxford University Press, 2020), deals with poets and patrons in Iran. She was awarded the Humboldt Foundation Fellowship to join the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin in order to embark on a book project on exile and exilic writing in the Persian tradition. Shams is also an internationally acclaimed, award-winning poet who has published three collections of poetry in Persian and in English. Her first collection, 88 (Gardoon, 2012), won the Jaleh Esfahani Poetry Award in London. Her third bilingual collection, When They Broke Down the Door (Mage, 2015), won a Latifeh Yarshater Book Award in 2016. Her poetry and translations have been featured in World Literature Today, the Michigan Quarterly Review, Life and Legends, Poetry Foundation, Jacket 2, Penn Sound, and more. The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women (Penguin, 2021) features a number of her poems.

Sunil Sharma is Professor of Persianate & Comparative Literature at Boston University. His areas of research are premodern Persian and South Asian literatures, specifically poetry and court cultures, history of the book, and travel writing. His last book, Mughal Arcadia: Persian Poetry in an Indian Court (Harvard University Press, 2017) is a study of early modern Persianate literature. The output of a multi-year project entitled “Veiled Voyagers: Muslim Women Travelers from Asia and the Middle East” with Siobhan Lambert-Hurley and Daniel Majchrowicz was recently published as Three Centuries of Travel Writing by Muslim Women (Indiana University Press, 2022). The book recovers, translates, and analyzes Muslim women’s travel writing from a range of languages in order to draw out the gendered relationships that inhere between travel and Muslim identities, nationalism, and the shaping of global power. Sharma was the president of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS).

Yidan Wang, professor of Persian language and literature, also serves as the director of the Institute of Iranian Culture Studies at Peking University. Her main research interests focus on classical Persian literature and the cultural exchanges between China and Iran from the tenth century, especially during the Mongol-Yuan period. Her publications include Tarikh-i Chin az Jami‘ al-Tavarikh (in Persian), A Study and Collated Translation of Rashid al-Din’s History of China in Jami‘ al- Tavarikh (in Chinese), the Chinese translations of Iranian Folktales, Rumi’s Masnavi-yi Ma‘navi (vol. 4), and Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. She has also published more than thirty articles on Persian literature or on the cross-cultural communications between China and Iran.

Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-American poet, playwright, and librettist. She is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, a Midwest Book Award, and the Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize. Her publications number over twelve collections of poetry, translations, and anthologies, as well as several plays. Her most recent book, Abacus of Loss: A Memoir in Verse, was chosen by The Mary Sue magazine as one of “8+ Beautiful, Contemporary Novels Written in Verse That Make Poetry Accessible,” and was hailed by Colorado Review as a book that “examines the masks of patriarchy in powerful metaphor and narrative.”

Wolpé's translations of the twelfth-century Sufi mystic poet, Attar, The Conference of the Birds (W.W. Norton & Company), and of the twentieth-century Iranian rebel poet Forugh Farrokhzad, Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad (University of Arkansas Press), have garnered awards and established Wolpé as a celebrated re-creator of Persian poetry in English.

Most recently, her play SHAME was featured in New Iranian Plays, published by Aurora Metro books (2022). Wolpé wrote the libretto for an oratorio, “The Conference of the Birds,” and a multi-genre performance, “The Seven Valleys,” which premiered, respectively, at the Broad Stage and the Getty Villa Museum in 2022. “Song of Exile,” for The Arlington Chorale, will premiere in Virginia in 2023.

Sholeh has lived in Iran, Trinidad, and the United Kingdom and is currently a writer-in-residence at the University of California, Irvine. She performs her literary work solo and with musicians internationally. She divides her time between Los Angeles and Barcelona.

Claudia Yaghoobi is Roshan Institute Associate Professor and director of the Center for the Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Yaghoobi is a scholar of Iranian cultural studies, and gender and sexuality studies with a focus on the members of sexual, ethnic, and religious minoritized populations. She is the author of “Transnational Culture in the Iranian Armenian Diaspora” (forthcoming, Edinburgh University Press, 2023), Temporary Marriage in Iran: Gender and Body Politics in Modern Persian Literature and Film (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and Subjectivity in ‘Attar, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism (Purdue University Press, 2017). She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2013. She teaches courses on Iranian literature and culture, Middle Eastern literature, gender and sexuality, diaspora studies, and human rights. As an Iranian-Armenian-American, Yaghoobi’s research concerns the literature of the Middle East with a special focus on Persian and Armenian literature. Within Persian literature and culture, her focus is on the members of sexual, ethnic, and religious minority populations, ones marginalized by normative society. Her work addresses the embodiments of liminality through which authors, artists, and directors challenge and critique social hegemonies. Her first monograph, Subjectivity in ‘Attar, reassesses the significance of the concept of transgression and construction of subjectivity within select works of the medieval Persian Sufi poet Farid al-Din ‘Attar Nishapuri (1145-1221). She traces the intersections of transgression, law, inclusion and exclusion, self and the other, in ʿAttar’s treatment of class, gender, sexuality, and religion. Her second monograph, Temporary Marriage in Iran, examines the representation of sigheh (temporary marriage) in modern Iranian cultural productions. However, the book moves beyond the literary and cinematic realms and examines in depth a rather controversial social institution that has been the subject of disdain for many Iranian feminists, and that has captured the imagination of many Western observers. Her third book, “Transnational Culture,” examines the various creative ways that Iranian-Armenian authors and artists, as members of religious and cultural minority populations of Iran and later in the diaspora in the United States, craft and negotiate a unique notion of self—one that is at odds with the wish to be integrated into mainstream society—while maintaining ties with the homeland.

Abolfazl Moshiri is a researcher for The Iranian Women Poets project at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at University of Toronto. He received his PhD from the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, in 2021. His doctoral dissertation which was generously supported for four years by Ontario Graduate Scholarship investigates the portrayal of Satan (Iblis) in classical Persian mysticism. His broad research areas include classical Perso-Islamic literature, Iranian Sufism, and the intellectual history of Persianate world from 10th to 16th century. Moshiri has been involved in several research projects including e-Campus Ontario, for which he developed online interactive modules for various courses in Islamic studies and Muslim civilizations to be offered across universities in Ontario. At the University of Toronto, he has also taught undergraduate courses on classical Persian literature and culture. His forthcoming article entitled “The Ishraqi Path: Toward Systematization of Suhrawardi’s Sufism” offers a new approach to better understanding Suhrawardi’s weltanschauung, which puts a greater emphasis on his mystical inclinations instead of his philosophical viewpoint.

Sophia Farokhi is a Research Associate at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto. Sophia holds a PhD in Iranian Studies. Her doctoral thesis, “Contesting Identities: A Critical Analysis of Iranian Identities,” examines contemporary Iranian political identities, their roots in Persian history, and their relation to more recent cultural and political phenomena in the Middle East and pays particular attention to the sociopolitical and religious influences shaping the perspective of contemporary Iranian political thinkers. Subsequent to the completion of her dissertation, she worked as a lecturer at several universities in Iran, where she taught courses in Iranian studies, political sociology, and political thought. She most recently held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Historical Studies (University of Toronto). Sophia is the author of numerous articles on Iranian society and politics, including “Cultural Schizophrenia: A Critical Analysis of Iranian Identity in the Thought of Dariush Shayegan,” and has written, edited, and translated several books. She recently co-translated The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation (2007) with Amirkabir Publisher, one of the most well-known publishing houses in Iran. This work has received wide attention in Iran.

Hamoun Hayati is a web designer with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto. He studied electrical engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University. Hamoun is the founder of the Toronto-based web studio, Hexpace, and has over a decade’s worth of experience working on web design and development projects with clients across different sectors. He is deeply passionate about the future of work and education and using technology to solve real-world problems.

Elizabeth Davis holds a PhD in Education from the University of Toronto and an MA in Political Science from McGill University. She researches the intersection of culture, politics, and media, focusing on the role of affect and aesthetics in the reproduction of formations of race, gender, and sexuality. She is the co-editor of Affective Politics of Digital Media (Routledge 2021) and has published articles in the fields of visual culture studies; aesthetics and politics; media studies; and affect theory. Her scholarly work can be found in Theory & Event, Emotion, Space and Society, The Senses and Society, and Cultural Studies. Elizabeth has worked in the fields of diversity and inclusion, accessibility accommodation, grant writing, and non-profit administration. She is a Lecturer in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Education at the University of Toronto.

David Anderson is a Research Assistant with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University. His dissertation, Seeing Otherwise: Nature, Blindness, Memoir, reads memoirs written by a variety of blind, queer, black, and women authors in order to evidence how blind, marginalized, and ecological sensoriums—particularly non-visual senses like hearing, smell, and touch—can promote more just political, social, and environmental collectivities. David has taught as a sessional instructor for Sexuality Diversity Studies and Critical Equity and Solidarity Studies (University of Toronto), and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (University of Toronto, Mississauga). He has worked for The Intersectionality Research Hub (Concordia University), and the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology (University of Toronto) and is a consulting editor with Iran Namag. David’s most recent work has been published in Feminist Formations and Disability Studies Quarterly.

Bilal Hashmi is a Research Affiliate with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto. Trained in English and comparative literature (at U of T and New York University, respectively), he is an editor, translator, and educator, who has taught widely in Canada and the United States, most recently as an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, and as a Lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of Virginia. Bilal is a consulting editor with Iran Namag and is presently at work on book-length translations of twentieth-century Persian poetry and prose. In 2018, he was selected to participate in the inaugural Persian to English translation workshop offered through the British Centre for Literary Translation’s International Literary Translation & Creative Writing Summer School at the University of East Anglia. He serves as the President of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada/Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada.

Yaser Farashahinejad is a Research Assistant with the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto. He holds a PhD in Persian literature and language and recently completed his postdoctoral research at Tarbiat Modares University in Iran. In addition to his academic pursuits, he is also a fiction writer, poet, and translator. To date, Yaser has authored four books: Gūrʹhā-yi kāghaz̲ī (Paper Graves), published by Diyār Nāmag in 2022; Farār az furm (Escaping Form), with Tarh-e-no Publications,Tehran, in 2020; Minārahʹhā-yi vārūnah (Inverted Minarets), also published in 2020 by Tarh-e-no; and Nazarīyahʹhā-yi rumān dar Īrān (Theories of the Novel in Iran), which was brought out by Pāyā Publications in 2019. As a translator, Yaser has thus far rendered two books from English to Persian: Hamid Rezaei Yazd’s Persian Literature and Modernity (as Mudarnītah-yi guftugūʼī, published in 2021 by Tarh-e-no), and The Rumi Prescription by Melody Moezzi (also published by Tarh-e-no in 2021, under the title Darmāngarī-yi Mawlānā). He has recently finished translating Ali Mirsepassi’s Transnationalism in Iranian Philosophical Thought, the manuscript of which is currently in press. Yaser has published numerous articles both in Iran and internationally, with a particular focus on contemporary Persian literature and history. His work has appeared in various publications, including Iran Namag, where he has already published two articles. A third piece, titled “Subliminal Dialogue,” is forthcoming in the same journal. Since 2020, Yaser has also worked as an editor and book reviewer at Tarh-e-no, a highly reputable and prestigious publisher in Iran. His research interests revolve around modernity, dialogue, and the philosophy of literature.

Guita Banan is a Research Assistant for the Women Poets project at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, University of Toronto. She is a graduate student at U of T’s Women and Gender Studies Institute, completing her Master’s with a focus on feminist and decolonial technoscience. In her research, she thinks about the question of agency at the intersection of feminist theory, feminist and decolonial technoscience, neurotechnology, and ethics. She received her PhD in physics from the University of Florida. Her area of focus in her PhD was, broadly speaking, biophysics of the brain and neuroimaging, which shapes her current interests as she pursues her studies in science and technology studies. Guita received her BSc in physics from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran.

Amir Anbari is the Digital librarian for the Tavakoli Archive at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, University of Toronto. Amir holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. His Master’s thesis, a survey of online Persian special networks and their role in knowledge management, was the first study of its kind. He also has an MBA certification from the University of Tehran, and is Project Management Certified from Centennial College. After finishing his MBA, he taught several courses in Business Administration, Operation Management and Agile Project Management in the College of Engineering at the University of Tehran. He is an instructor at Centennial College’s Business School, where he teaches Digital Marketing and Marketing Project Management.

Amir was a radio guest expert for several years in the startup ecosystem of Iran. During his career, he has gained experience working with the National Library and Archives of Iran and the Parliament Library of Iran. In addition to this, he has more than a thousand hours of experience in placing workshops on library systems, knowledge management systems, and standards.

Faraz Chogan is a second-year Ph.D. student at the Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto (UofT), specializing in burn wound healing. Holding a master’s degree from University of Tehran, Faraz is dedicated to advancing medical science and exploring innovative therapeutic approaches for enhancing patient outcomes in burn injury cases. From June 2023, Faraz Chogan joined Iranian cinema under the supervision of Sophia.

Sara Molaie is a first-year PhD student at the Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations department. She received her MA from the University of Washington and wrote her thesis on the revival of the Hebrew and Persian languages in the 19th century. Her current research focuses on the notion of revival in the poems of 19th and 20th-century Iranian women poets.

Eszter Melitta Szabo is a Master’s student in Near & Middle Eastern Civilisations at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi. Presently, she dedicates her efforts as a Research Assistant for the Women Poets Iranica Project at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies. With extensive training in philology, she holds a BA in Indian Studies with a minor in Iranian Studies, specializing in the exploration of classical and modern languages and literature from both regions. Her academic pursuits revolve around the broader fields of 20th-century women’s literature, Gender Studies, and Anthropology, where she passionately explores their intricate intersections within the cultural tapestries of Iran and India.

Azin Golrizkhatami is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Civil and Mineral Engineering Department at the University of Toronto. Her area of expertise is Transportation Engineering under the supervision of Professor Matthew Roorda. Her current research is focusing on the pricing models of crowd shipping services. She holds a B.Sc. in civil engineering and an M.Sc. in transportation engineering from Sharif University of Technology.

Nariman Gooranorimi is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto majoring in human biology, double minoring in near middle eastern civilization and French language. Throughout his studies, he worked as a Research Assistant at the Tavakoli Archives to ameliorate his research skills. Outside of academics, he is a peer mentor at the University of Toronto’s Medical Sciences Student Union; he has created and sold numerous profitable businesses and enjoys volunteering in hospitals during his free time.

Arash, a seasoned scholar and researcher, embarked on his academic adventure in aerospace engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT), subsequently acquiring a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta (UofA). Presently, he is pursuing his PhD at the University of Toronto (UofT), with his research primarily centered around the development of innovative numerical models for human lung tissue diseases.

However, Arash's achievements span beyond the traditional confines of hard sciences. As the former Editor-in-Chief for the Peik scientific magazine, he successfully orchestrated a team of over thirty individuals, ensuring the production of significant and impactful scientific content. His administrative aptitude shone through during his stint as an executive member of the Iranian Students’ Association at UofA. There, he meticulously organized various activities and events, which earned him well-deserved accolades from the university.

Complementing his academic and professional pursuits, Arash has nurtured a profound connection with the arts. For the past decade, he has been mastering the Setar, a classic Iranian musical instrument, showcasing his deep reverence for cultural heritage and the arts. This artistic endeavor has not only augmented his creative abilities, but it has also fostered essential skills such as team collaboration, communication, and cross-cultural engagement.

Given his eclectic experiences — encompassing academic research, leadership in student organizations, pedagogical commitments, and artistic endeavors — Arash stands uniquely equipped for roles that demand a harmonious fusion of technical proficiency, project management, communication skills, and cultural comprehension.

Negar Banisafar is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto (U of T). She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University and two MAs, one in Dramatic Literature from Soore University and another in the study of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations from U of T. She was one of the recipients of the Scholars-at-Risk Fellowship from the School of Graduate Studies and Massey College at U of T. In 2022, she received the Norman Itzkowitz Turkish Short Story Award for the best short story written in Modern Turkish.

Gunha Kim is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto. Previously, he studied at Seoul National University.
His doctoral project aims to study the historical development of the discourse of voluntary death—suicide and martyrdom—in twentieth-century Iran. In particular, his dissertation aims to connect the concurrent development of psychiatric studies on suicide, the necropolitical discourse of martyrdom, and the environmental discourse of pollution as a mass suicide.
Gunha has been involved with multiple academic projects related to Iran. He has contributed as a digital archivist at the Persian Archive, a researcher for the encyclopedia of Iranian Cinema and Iranian women poets, and, very recently, an editorial intern of an Iranian Studies journal.

Natasha Shokri holds an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the United Nations-mandated University for Peace. Her Master’s dissertation scrutinizes water as a catalyst for peacemaking in the Middle East. Natasha has been nominated for, and has received, various awards and distinctions, including that of UNESCO Youth Peace Ambassador for her peacebuilding and human rights activities. Currently, she is working on her doctoral degree in Social Justice Education at OISE, University of Toronto. Her research interests are black feminism; critical media education; the science of happiness and education; peace education; the pedagogy of hope; and refugee education.

Saeid Amirzadeh is a PhD student at the Mechanical and Industrial engineering department of the University of Toronto. He has backgrounds in computational science, data science and programming. Saeid has done research in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and biomechanics.

Rahimah Baluch is a third-year Human Biology student at the University of Toronto St. George Campus. She is a research assistant for Iranian Women Poets in which her goal is to help complete a journal issue alongside other researchers, as well as gain insight into Iranian poetry. Her interests outside of her position include literature, illustration, and writing.

Elham Avard is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto. Her academic focus lies on using Artificial intelligence for medical image analysis. She received her BA in Physics and M.Sc. in Medical Physics from Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. However, in free time, she is interested in Cinema and Iranian poem, which encouraged her to collaborate with Cinema Iranica project as a work study student.

Farshad Tajddinisarvestani is a PhD student at the University of Toronto, specializing in the field of mechanical and industrial engineering. His research revolves around the fascinating realm of Data-Driven Modeling, In-Silico Experiments, and In-Vivo Visualization of Cardiovascular Flows using cutting-edge techniques such as medical imaging, patient specific and physics-based simulations, reduced order modeling, and machine learning.

In Dr. Tavakili’s group, I have opportunity to delve into the realm of Artificial Intelligence, with a particular focus on Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this capacity, I am involved in an intriguing Digital Humanities project, where I utilize AI and NLP techniques to unlock valuable insights and facilitate novel approaches to understanding various aspects of the humanities and the Persian poets.

Sogand Karimi is an enthusiastic individual who is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at the Centre of Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Literature, where not only did she excel academically, but also actively participated in a wide range of creative pursuits. Throughout her studies, Sogand nurtured her skills in writing short stories, directing, and acting in numerous student projects.

Sogand’s research interests center around the fascinating intersection of social studies and dramatic art. She enjoys exploring the social and political dimensions of the body in performance and dramatic texts. Through her research, she aims to shed light on the transformative power of theater and its potential to inspire meaningful societal change.

In addition to her academic pursuits, Sogand loves engaging in various artistic and outdoor activities. She finds peace and creative inspiration in playing the piano. Furthermore, her passion for singing allows her to express herself and convey emotions through the magic of music. When she isn’t engrossed in her artistic endeavors, Sogand often spends time hiking and immersing herself in nature’s beauty, as she seeks out new adventures in life.

Parvin Malekzadeh, received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2018, and Masc. in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University, Canada, in 2020. She is currently pursuing Ph.D.  in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Toronto, Canada. Her research interests lie in the areas of signal processing, Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning and Internet of Things.

Emma McDonald is a 4th year undergraduate student, earning a bachelor’s degree with a major in Anthropology and minors in Digital Humanities and Cinema. Emma is interested in how cinema is both a functional and reflective expression of social/cultural identities, on a personal and national level. She seeks to explore how representation of genre, in particular humor and comedy, is a key component in the unique characters of national cinemas. In addition to her academic work, Emma is an accomplished mixed media sculpture artist whose work has been featured as part of numerous collaborative projects with local Toronto artists and arts community spaces.

Tara Yazdanimotlagh is a second-year Mechanical Engineering PhD student at the University of Toronto, is delving into research that emphasizes the physical-based modeling of solution droplets in solution precursor plasma spray. In addition to her academic pursuits in engineering, she boasts a robust passion for Iranian cinema. Tara really likes to learn more about Iranian cinema history and develop her knowledge in this field.

Robert McConney is an MA student at the Department for the Study of Religion. He is due to begin his PhD at the Department of Anthropology in September 2023. Robert holds BA Hons in History from the University of Southampton (2016) and an MA in Iranian Studies from the University of Tehran (2019). For the last 20 years Robert has lived on and off in various countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, Iran and Turkey. He has a working proficiency in Persian. His previous research focused on Gilan and the Jangali movement. It has since shifted to the Caribbean practice of Muharram known as Hosay. His research seeks to connect his experience in the Middle East with his personal background as a British-West Indian of Bajan heritage.

Zahra Kazemi is a dedicated graduate student at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), having completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. Beyond her engineering background, Zahra nurtures a genuine passion for Iranian history, art, poetry, and cinema. This deep appreciation has motivated her to delve into the world of Persian poetry, where she was actively contributing as a researcher in Professor Virani’s esteemed Dream Team at the University of Toronto, illuminating the profound beauty and significance of Persian poetry.

Currently, Zahra has embarked on a new journey as a member of Professor Tavakoli’s team, immersing herself in the Iranian Cinema Project. Driven by her profound appreciation for the arts, Zahra aims to offer a fresh and unique perspective to the exploration of Iranian cinema, highlighting its cultural and artistic importance.

Fahimeh Fazel  a Student Member of the IEEE, holds a B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the AmirKabir University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, which she earned in 2016. Additionally, she received an M.Sc. degree in communication systems engineering from the University of Tehran in 2019. Her research interests span several areas, including wireless communication, cache-enabled UAV networks, visible light communication, coding theory, and their applications in visible light communications. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto (Saint George) and working under the guidance of Prof. Jorg Liebeherr on distributed machine learning in communication networks.

Hibah Mehvish is a second-year student at University of Toronto, Scarborough. She is a candidate for Honors Bachelor of Science with a double major in Neuroscience and Molecular Biology and Immunology. She is part of the Tavakoli Archive as research assistant.

Samira Ghanbarnejad works as a research assistant for the Women Poet Iranica and Cinema Iranica projects. She is a master student at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. Her research interest lies in the syntax of Iranian languages. Currently, she is working on ergativity in Middle Persian. She completed her first master’s degree in ancient Iranian languages and cultures in Iran. For her first master’s thesis, she conducted research on the discourse analysis of Gathic Avestan. She also has a BA degree in music and is a Kanun player.

Farshad Dabbaghi is a Ph.D. student in Civil and Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto, specializing in the durability and long-term properties of reinforced concrete structures. The outcome of his research is 16 journal papers. He has also published two books entitled “Construction Materials” and “Principles of Applied Earthquake Engineering” in the field of Civil Engineering. His research aims to enhance the performance and durability of reinforced concrete structures, contributing to the development of sustainable infrastructure solutions.

Yasamin Jameh is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto majoring in International Relations and minoring in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC). Since Fall 2022, Yasamin has been the host, producer, and editor of the Elahe Omidyar Institute of Iranian Studies’ official podcast: Parse: An Exploration of Critical Topics in Iranian Studies. With the generous support of the EOM Institute, Yasamin created Parse in order expand the reach of the Institute’s large academic output among the public via the easily accessible podcast format. Parse is currently available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other streaming platforms.

Previously, Yasamin worked for the Multi-Faith Center at the University of Toronto where she founded and co-hosted Subaltern Speaks, a podcast sponsored by Student Life dedicated to exploring the legacies of colonialism on the religion and spiritualties of colonized peoples. As someone of partial Iranian descent, Yasamin has a natural love and admiration for Iranian history and culture, particularly Iranian history from the Safavid era and onwards. More broadly, Yasamin’s interests and perspectives are also informed by her Latin American and Dutch Caribbean heritage which have contributed to her profound fascination with the history of the Americas, Atlantic history, and Early Modern European history.

Sahar Javadi is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree at University of Toronto studying Ethics, Society, and Law and Criminology and Socio-legal studies. She is an aspiring lawyer who only has one year left to obtaining her Honours Bachelor’s degree. Sahar hopes to continue her research in the field of Criminology. She looks forward to nurturing her research skills on the complex intersection of imprisonment and three criteria of deterrence, recidivism, and rehabilitation. On the side, she is also interested about prison violence and more particularly, gendered violence against women and children in prisons. After receiving her Master’s degree in Criminology, she aims to attend law school and obtain her doctoral degree in legal studies. She is hoping to put the results of her Criminology research in practical use once she begins her practice as a criminal lawyer and becomes an advocate for prisoners.

Presently, she is dedicating her efforts as a research assistant for the Iranian Cinema Project at Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies. In addition to academic pursuits, Sahar is a freelance translator who is currently busy translating a legal dictionary. Sahar has made it her personal mission to translate as many academic sources in her field as possible and make them accessible for students in her home country, Iran. She finds peace grappling with words and their meanings and hopes to leave a practical legacy for her country in this way.

Sepideh Najmzadeh is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. Sepideh completed her first Master’s degree in Ancient Iranian culture and Languages included studies in Avestan, Old Persian, and Middle Persian at the University of Tehran. She later pursued and obtained a second master’s degree from the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. Sepideh is conducting her dissertation research, under the supervision of Professor Enrico Raffaelli, on analyzing the New Persian Zoroastrian manuscripts of Vaṣf-e Amšāsfandān (The Description of Bounteous Immortals). Currently, Sepideh is actively engaged in various research projects within Tavakoli Archive.

Alireza Dianat is a PhD student in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research interest is travel demand modelling and he is currently working on choice of workplace and telecommuting decision for his PhD under the supervision of Professor Khandker Nurul Habib. 

Parastu Ahang Mehdawi has been a prose poetry writer from a very young age. She published her first book, a memoir, A Quest for Identity from Afghanistan to the World in June 2022. She is pursuing her education at the University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Science in English literature and creative writing. In May 2023, she joined the Iranian studies projects at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She proudly works under Dr. Mohamad Tavakoli’s recommendation and has helped with the Archive, women’s poets and cinema.

Leila Moslemi Mehni is a PhD candidate at the Department of Near and Middle Civilizations at University of Toronto under Professor Tavakoli-Targhi’s supervision. Her BA in Museum Studies was granted from Cultural Heritage Education Center in Tehran in 2005. In 2015, she received her first MA in Art History from York University followed by her second MA in Middle Eastern Studies from University of Toronto in 2018. Her dissertation is on the Iranian visual public sphere, 1890-1953, which is the study of images from the periodicals since the emergence of print in Iran.

Fatemeh is 4th year PhD student in Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Toronto. Her PhD project is focused to understand the biological mechanism underlying glioblastoma tumors heterogeneity and plasticity in patient-derived glioblastoma stem cells. In 2014, Fatemeh has completed her B.Sc. in Molecular Genetics at SCU in Iran. She then started her M.Sc. in human genetic at MUMS in Iran. Fatemeh is interested in Iran’s cinema history and literature, which made her collaborate on this project as work study student.

Viana Sadeghi is a dedicated and passionate third-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, St. George campus. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Philosophy of Science and Environmental Studies. Alongside her academic pursuits, Viana actively contributes to the Iranian Women Poets project, utilizing her skills and knowledge to shed light on the rich literary heritage of Iranian women. Furthermore, she is an esteemed member of Amnesty International Affiliation, demonstrating her commitment to human rights and social justice causes. Viana’s academic interests encompass a wide range of thought-provoking topics, including the intersection of history and philosophy, issues surrounding poverty and underrepresented groups, the dynamics of care and violence within kinship, among others. Her enthusiasm for these subjects is evident in her course selection, as she seeks to delve deeper into these themes and gain a comprehensive understanding of their complexities.

Samiramis Khazaei is currently pursuing a master's degree in industrial engineering with emphasis on analytics and finance at the University of Toronto. She holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Iran and a master's degree in construction management from Australia. In addition to her engineering studies, Samiramis has a deep passion for literature, culture, and history, which has led her to contribute her skills and knowledge as an Archive Assistant at the Tavakoli Archive.

Hanie Rezaei is a passionate graduate student in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. Her research focus is on developing innovative solutions for electric vehicle battery cooling, contributing to the sustainable future of transportation. Hanie holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran.

Beyond her engineering pursuits, Hanie possesses a deep appreciation for various art forms, including cinema and poetry. Motivated by her passion for the arts and a desire to explore the cultural richness of her homeland, Hanie recently joined the esteemed Cinema Iranica team. Hanie aims to contribute a fresh and unique perspective to the project, shedding light on the cultural and artistic significance of Iranian cinema.

With her diverse background and interdisciplinary interests, Hanie is committed to bridging the gap between engineering and the humanities. She aspires to make meaningful contributions not only to her research but also to the broader understanding and appreciation of Iranian cinema, ultimately fostering a deeper connection between technology and the arts.

Negin Kamvizh completed her MSc in International Relations with Distinction at the University of Glasgow. She was awarded the Chevening Scholarship by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. She specialised in Human Rights and Global Politics, Environmentalism, Gender Equality, United Nations Law and Humanitarian Law. Her research focused on the securitisation of climate change in the UN Security Council. Prior to this, she completed a BA in Russian Language at the University of Tehran specialising in Russian Language, Literature and Politics.

Negin has quantitative and qualitative research experience. She has worked for the UN Information Centre in Tehran and UNDP in Istanbul, Turkey in areas of Research, Communication, Climate Change and Sustainability. She has language abilities in Persian, English, Russian, Turkish and Tajiki. Negin is assisting the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, University of Toronto with Women Poets and Cinema Iranica Projects