Speaker Biographies

Banafsheh Akhlaghi, Esq.

Banafsheh Akhlaghi is the Founder and President of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement (NLSCA).   She is committed to fostering collaboration among partnering organizations invested in securing civil/human rights.  She has testified before Congress on numerous occasions and has provided over2,700 individuals with direct legal services on a sliding-scale and pro-bono basis via consultations, referrals, and direct representation.  Ms. Akhlaghi has been honored with numerous awards; and in 2008, she was awarded she was awarded the Public Service Contribution Award from the Iranian American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) and the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from Congressman Mike Honda of the U.S House of Representatives.  Ms. Akhlaghi received her B.A. from the University of San Francisco, and her Juris Doctorate from Tulane University. She is a member of the California and San Francisco Bar Associations.

Niaz Kasravi 

Niaz Kasravi serves as the Director of Community Relations for the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA).  She received her Ph. D. in Criminology, Law & Society from the University of California, Irvine.  In her academic career, she focused on sociology of law and issues of law and inequality.  Through a National Science Foundation grant, she traveled to Iran to work with Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient of 2003, on women’s role in the reform movement.

Dr. Kasravi has worked as the Lead Researcher and Associate for the Domestic Human Rights Program of Amnesty International USA, helping build this new program for the organization. At Amnesty, she focused on racial profiling, prison conditions, juveniles in the criminal justice system, civil rights and the “war on terror”, as well as other domestic human rights issue.

Additionally, Dr. Kasravi has served as Policy Associate for Stop Prisoner Rape, a national human rights organization working to end sexual violence behind bars. She also served as a consultant for several California-based foundations, including the Rosenberg Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence, and the Women’s Foundation of California.  Prior to joining PAAIA, Dr. Kasravi served as the Senior Program Officer for a prominent non-profit human rights organization in Washington, D.C. focusing on the issues of human rights in the Middle East.

Mahdis Keshavarz

For nearly a decade Mahdis Keshavarz has worked at the forefront of groundbreaking human rights issues. Ms. Keshavarz has placed thousands of news stories and op-eds with various media outlets – including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC, The Village Voice and Al Jazeera – for her clients.  Her client roster includes international dignitaries, Hollywood stars, and numerous film festivals and events addressing the Middle East community both in the United States and abroad. An accomplished advocate of human rights and social justice issues, Keshavarz has written for the online magazine Slate and appeared as a commentator on Democracy Now! and BBC.  She serves on the advisory board for the Center for Social Inclusion and the Alston Bannerman Fellowship Program.  She is the founder of The Make Agency pr firm and a partner in BoomGen Studios.

Niloofar Mohtasham-Nouri

Currently a consultant at a Real estate development company, Niloofar Mohtasham-Nouri was previously a principal of Corporate Development Partners, a management consulting firm. She has over ten years experience with high tech semiconductor, software, and Internet firms in Silicon Valley in the areas of systems and organizational development, quality systems implementation, strategic planning, marketing and public relations. She received a M.S.  in Industrial Engineering/Operations Research, Certification in Management of Technology, and a B.A. in both Mathematics and Near Eastern Studies, all from UC Berkeley. Additionally, she was a Lecturer at Cal State Hayward, and authored "Iranians and Immigration," which was commissioned by the Zellerbach Foundation for K-12 Californian public schools.

Her over fifteen years of experience in non-profit organizations began as founder and President of UC Berkeley’s Iranian Student’s Cultural Organization (ISCO) from 1988 to 1989.  She continued her non-profit service as Vice President of Society of Iranian Professionals (SIP) from 1996 through 1997, was President of SIP from 1997 through 1998, President of Persian Center from 1999 through 2002, and is now a Board member.  As an ambassador of the Wheelchair Foundation, she has helped raise funds and deliver over 3000 wheelchairs worldwide, including Iran and China.