Banafsheh Akhlaghi, Esq. is the founder and President of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement (NLSCA), a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the human rights and dignity of Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (MEMSA) peoples.  Ms. Akhlaghi, formerly a Constitutional Lawyer, gave up her teaching position in 2001 to create Akhlaghi & Associates, specializing in immigration and civil rights post 9/11.  In September of 2004, Akhlaghi & Associates was transformed into NLSCA, and has since emerged as a lead advocate of civil rights and human rights for the MEMSA community in the post-9/11 era.  Since 2001, nearly 2,500 individuals have been provided with legal services on a sliding-scale and pro-bono basis. In May of 2005, NLSCA was retained as a consultant to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.  Ms. Akhlaghi is committed to fostering collaboration among partnering organizations, governmental and non-governmental, invested in securing civil/human rights.  She has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, including the 2003 Amnesty International Racial Profiling Hearings, and she regularly conducts cultural Sensitivity Trainings with branches of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  Ms. Akhlaghi has been honored with numerous awards including being named by the Daily Journal as “Top 100 Most Influential Lawyers” in California in 2005 and “Top 100 Leading Lawyers” in 2006; and in 2006, she was awarded the “Rising Peacemaker Prize” by the Agape Foundation. Ms. Akhlaghi received her B.A. from the University of San Francisco , with attendance at Cambridge University , and her Juris Doctorate from Tulane University . She is a member of the California and San Francisco Bar Associations.

 

Jasmine Ainetchian is a sophomore studying Public Health and French Literature at Johns Hopkins University. In the summer of 2006, she received support from Children of Persia to travel to Iran with a fellow student conducting a research study entitled “Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors of HIV-positive patients in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” She is currently involved in the development and expansion of the REACH network. She is hoping to continue her education in public health or medicine.

 

Kamiar Alaei, M.D./MPH, is co-author of Iran's National and International Strategic Plans for the Control of HIV/IDU/TB .  He was a key player in putting together Iran 's proposal to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS/TB/Malaria, which was awarded 16 million dollars.  He and his brother, Arash, were the main contributors in the establishment of the first counseling and care center for HIV-positive patients in Iran , which was recently documented as one of the "Best Practice[s]" by the World Health Organization in the Middle East and North Africa region (www.ghinmeca.com).  Kamiar is currently studying International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. 

 

Narges Alipanah is a second year Public Health Studies major at Johns Hopkins University .  Last summer, she was given a grant by Children of Persia to do an internship in Iran , working on the treatment outcome of tuberculosis patients diagnosed with HIV and assessing medical needs in the rural medical clinics in Zabol. She is interested in continuing her education in Public Health Studies and Medicine, hoping to play a more significant role in helping neglected regions such as Zabol. 

 

Nassim Assefi, a second-generation Iranian-American, is an internist specializing in women's health and global medicine. She has been an academic in Seattle, a humanitarian aid worker in Kabul , and an aspiring musician in Havana.  She has traveled to more than 40 countries, and is currently based in Seattle , Washington . Nassim is a graduate of Wellesley College , University of Washington Medical School, and Harvard's Brigham and Women's residency program. Her first novel, Aria , will be published in May.  She is currently writing a second novel set in post-conflict Afghanistan and volunteering as a women's health physician at Seattle 's county hospital.  She has worked on volunteer projects in Iran a handful of times since first returning in 1991, including studying rural women's health following the Revolution, examining the health needs of nomads, and lecturing on medical abortion in an Islamic context. Her latest interest is studying the reverse brain drain of remarkable Iranian women.

 

Roya Bahrami was born and raised in Tehran and moved to the U.S. in 1977.  She has over 20 years of experience performing Persian art-music on her Santur and has studied with the masters of this art-form including Maestros Lotfi, Alizadeh, and Talai. Over the years, she has actively promoted and advanced the art-music of Iran in the United States .  In 2000, her first world fusion album, Probe , was featured at a concert sponsored by the Freer Gallery.  She has appeared in solo performances, lectures, and recitals at the Smithsonian's National and Freer Galleries, Art Club of Washington , and various universities and cultural institutions around the country.  Upon an invitation by Carmela Greco, the renowned flamenco dancer, Roya began creating a new genre of Persian-flamenco fusion; this collaboration appeared on stages in D.C., Baltimore , and Portland during 2004-2005. She is currently working on the release of her new album.

 

Meenoo Chahbazi is an Iranian-American civil rights attorney who practices in the areas of employment discrimination, class action, and qui tam litigation at Sanford, Wittels, and Heisler LLP, in Washington D.C.  She is the public relations coordinator for the D.C. Iranian American Bar Association (IABA) and has recently served as an editor of the IABA Review.  She is also a coordinator for Shabeh Jomeh , a monthly gathering that provides an opportunity for Iranian professionals to socialize and network.  Meenoo received her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard, where she served as co-president of the Middle Eastern Law Students' Association.  She also received a B.A. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley, where she was editor-in-chief of an Iranian student publication, Perspective, that explored salient social, cultural, and political issues confronting the Iranian diaspora in America.   Her life challenges, goals, and aspirations, have been distinctly textured by her Iranian-American identity.

 

Anna Fahr was born in Rolla , Missouri, USA and grew up in Ottawa, Canada. During a visit to Iran at the age of twelve, she developed a fascination for her country of cultural origin that would follow her over the years.  Upon earning her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Film Production from Concordia University in Montreal , she decided to return to the country that had sparked her inspiration ten years before. In 2003, Anna received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to begin production of her first feature-length documentary, Khaneh Ma: These Places We Call Home .   The film examines the question of what defines home by presenting the lives of three generations of Iranians living in Iran, Canada, and Germany. Khaneh Ma: These Places We Call Home premiered in Montreal at Les rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in February 2006 and has gone on to screen in international festivals and universities in Canada, Europe, and the USA.  Currently, Anna is developing a feature-length fiction film set during a period of critical social transition in pre-revolutionary Iran.

 

Simin Farkhondeh is an award winning filmmaker, who has been working as an artist, educator and activist in New York, Europe and Iran. She was born in Germany and raised in Iran and went to college in the US. She is co-director of the Gulf Crisis TV Project, an award winning Deep Dish series that aired on PBS, Channel Four of England and was screened at the Whitney Biennial, and the Margaret Mead Film. From 1995 to 2003 Simin directed the award winning Labor at the Crossroads, a monthly TV program about work, which aired on cable in New York and other cities across the US. In 1999 she produced ADJUNCT AGONY, a short dramatic piece about the plight of adjunct faculty in US universities. In 2001 she produced SALT PEANUTS a look at the effect of September 11 on airline workers, which screened at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2003 she directed OTHER, a fiction short on the plight of Middle Eastern detainees. Simin is a recipient of the Rockefeller Fellowship Award for Who Gives Kisses Freely From Her Lips, a film about temporary marriage in Iran. She teaches Film and Video Arts at Hampshire College of Massachusettes.

 

Ali Ghezelbash is a Strategic and Political Advisor at Norwegian oil major Norsk Hydro.  Prior to joining Hydro in June 2006, he worked for two and a half years as an Associate Director for Iran 's largest strategic and business consultancy, Atieh Bahar Consulting.  In this position, he was responsible for regular political analysis and strategic advising to international petroleum companies.   Born in 1980, Mr. Ghezelbash moved with his family to Sweden in 1990.  He holds a B.A. in Politics from the University of Sussex and an M.Sc. in International Politics (major: Middle East) from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.  He has appeared in the press as a commentator on Iran and wrote a chapter on Iranian energy policies in the Heartland Eurasian Review of Geopolitics (“Unveiling Iran”, 04/2005).  While at Atieh Bahar, Mr. Ghezelbash was also managing editor of the monthly Iran Energy Focus and editor of its successor publication, Iran Strategic Focus.

 

Mary Elaine Hegland received her Ph.D. in social cultural anthropology from SUNY, Binghamton in 1986 and teaches cultural anthropology at Santa Clara . She has recently been conducting research on aging and the elderly in Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, as well as Iranian elderly living in the US . Her research focuses on the changing situations of the elderly due to modernization and globalization and on how they conceptualize and cope with these changes. Hegland has made several research trips to Iran in recent years to follow developments in her original research site near Shiraz and to investigate the lives and perspectives of older individuals. Several articles based on this research are forthcoming. Based on research at a grandparents' club and at an Iranian day activity and care center, she has also published about Iranian seniors in Northern California 's Bay Area.

 

Mishana Hosseinioun is the Program Director of International Convention on Human Rights – a non-profit organization dedicated to implementing human rights education worldwide and drafting a legally enforceable human rights document for the new millennium. An Iranian-American and speaker of six languages, Mishana is a recent graduate of Rhetoric and Near Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley , and is a longstanding intern in Mayor Gavin Newsom's office in San Francisco .

 

Persis Karim is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University . She is the editor and contributing author to LET ME TELL YOU WHERE I'VE BEEN: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (University of Arkansas Press, 2006) and the co-editor of LET ME TELL YOU WHERE I'VE BEEN: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (1999). She has written numerous articles on literature and the emergence of Iranian American identity.

 

Yaser Kerachian is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto , where he received his Ph.D. in physics. He obtained his B.Sc. in physics from Sharif University of Technology. In 1999, he moved to Toronto , Canada to continue his studies. From 2001 to 2003, he served on the executive committee of the Iranian Association at the University of Toronto . He currently works in the Technology Transfer Office of the University where he deals with the commercialization of the school's research. Yaser is the co-founder and president of Knowledge Diffusion Network and a member of the board of directors of the Toronto chapter of the Sharif University of Technology Association.

 

Sara Khaki is a sophomore student at Community College of Baltimore County Essex in Maryland majoring in the Fine Arts. She volunteered at Khaneh Mehr in Karaj for six weeks during summer 2006 with the Working and Street Kids' Project. She is interested in connecting her art work with social issues in the future.

 

Shima Khaki is a senior majoring in graphic design at Towson University in Maryland . She completed a six week internship, supported by Children of Persia, on the Working & Street Kids' project at Khaneh Mehr in Karaj . Her goal is to work in the field of Communication Arts in the future.

 

Homa Khamsi emigrated from Iran to the United States in 1983. She has lived in California since then and in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1987. Homa has been working at UC Berkeley for fifteen years and is currently the Associate Director of Administration at the Labor Occupational Health Program of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health . Homa earned her MBA in the United States and her Bachelor's degree in Sociology from the National University of Iran. In Iran, she was a high school teacher for two years. Five years ago, Homa recognized the lack of facilities for young Iranians to learn the Persian language and about Iranian culture. In order to fill this void, she established the first Farsi language school in Danville, CA, called Nima Farsi School. Homa is the president of the PTA for Nima Farsi School.

 

Ahmad Kiarostami has worked in cinema and software industries for more than fifteen years. After taking on leadership roles at Microsoft Middle East, he founded three companies including the first multimedia and online production venue in Iran, where he published award-winning multimedia products in cinema and visual arts. He also served as an advisory member of the Iranian National Graphics Society. Ahmad was a member of several national software standard committees, and developed the first full-text search technology for Persian content which was adopted by different products and online newspapers. He founded Persopedia.com, which is now becoming the basis for a massive data archiving project about Iran at Stanford University. Ahmad has made short films and has worked at different roles on film projects with wellknown Iranian directors including Bahram Beyzaie and Ramin Bahrani. He has initiated and contributed to several film and cultural initiatives, including a new online section for San Francisco International Film Festival. Ahmad has studied Math and Computer Science at Sharif University, Industrial Engineering at Azad University, and Philosophy at UCLA. He's currently the Director of Desktop Applications at LiteScape Technologies in Northern California.

Sarvnaz Lotfi is a Neuroscience and Anthropology double major in her third year at Oberlin College . She plans on pursuing graduate studies in Public Health.  This past summer, she conducted two studies investigating the effect of HIV/AIDS and TB in Iranian households as well as understanding the care patients of stigmatized diseases receive from their healthcare providers.  Sarvnaz used her background in anthropology to focus both studies on the relationship between healthcare and culture. This summer, she plans on conducting follow-up studies to her work from the previous year. She is currently involved in the development and expansion of the REACH network with Drs. Kamiar and Arash Alaei.

 

Alidad Mafinezam is Director of Research at the Mosaic Institute in Toronto. He has taught at the University of Toronto and also acted as a consultant to the International Development Research Centre, the Royal Society of Canada, and the UN-mandated University for Peace, among other organizations.  Holding a PhD in public policy from Rutgers University , he has expertise on think tanks and the relationship between academia and government.

 

Pardis Mahdavi, PhD, has recently joined Pomona College as Assistant Professor of anthropology after pursuing her doctorate at Columbia University in the departments of Sociomedical Sciences and Anthropology. She received her BA in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College , an MA in Anthropology, and a Masters of International Affairs (MIA) from Columbia University . Her research interests include sexuality, human rights, transnational feminism and public health in the context of changing global and political structures. She completed her dissertation on the intersection between sexuality and politics in post-revolutionary Iran , focusing on the new sexual and social revolution among urban Iranian young adults.

 

Danesh Mazloomdoost was born in Louisville, Kentucky but moved to Iran a month after his birth. His family lived in Shiraz until he was two, after which they returned to the United States and eventually settled in Lexington, KY. He attended Case Western Reserve University for an undergraduate degree in Business Management and Healthcare Economics and proceeded to Johns Hopkins Medical School for his M.D. He continues at Johns Hopkins as a resident in Anesthesiology. He has traveled to Iran twice for ongoing research projects and is currently working on the information retrieval behaviors of residents in Iran.

 

Kamin Mohammadi is an Iranian writer, journalist, broadcaster and commentator based in London, where she moved after leaving Iran as a child of nine years of age. She specializes in writing about Iran , particularly modern Iranian society. She has had major stories published in UK publications and has appeared on various British radio programs as a commentator on Iran . She is co-author of the Lonely Planet Guide to Iran , writing the chapters on the arts and culture. Kamin is passionate about bringing out the human elements of the stories we see (or more often don't see) in the news. She has written about the after-effects of the Iran-Iraq war, drug addiction and AIDS in Iran , the innocent civilian victims of chemical bombardments, sexual politics, and even the Iranian penchant for both devotion to religion and partying. She is currently writing a family memoir about Iran, to be published by Bloomsbury early in 2008, and is working on a cross-media project to commemorate the Iran-Iraq war. Most recently, she has been nominated for an Amnesty Media Award for Excellence in Human Rights Journalism for a piece she wrote about the forgotten chemical victims of Iran.

 

Hushidar Mortezaie was born in Tehran and emigrated at the age of three to the Bay Area of California in 1975. He attended UC Berkeley for Fine Arts and Illustration in 1991 and moved to NYC for 10 and a half years with his design and business partner Michael Sears. Together they formed the influential cult fashion label Michael and Hushi in which American popular culture, Parisian couture posturing, and a new wave of Iranian aesthetics created a singular vision that was lauded by countless fashion mags such as W and Vogue as well as continually worn by Madonna, Britney Spears, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Brad Pitt. Hushi's bohemian California  skater cool childhood blended with gritty New York art house styling and Iranian traditions of Googoosh and Qajar and gave him the breadth of material to realize his art. Instantly, his vision of his surroundings were reflected in his eyes and back to the world through a kaleidoscope of images that all melded into a new  force of pop art and fashion. He has been credited for his prophetic buying for the ultra hip Patricia Field boutique which led to the Japanese pop phenomenon of the early nineties, single-handedly beginning  the rise of Iranian calligraphy on textiles, bringing the hejab into the Paris fashion houses and magazines, and a new desire and urgency for the younger generation's  exploration of Middle Eastern cool. Other than the fashion world, his work has been exhibited in galleries across the US, Japan, Dubai, Europe and Iran. Hushidar now resides in Los Angeles, closer to the largest group of young Iranians where he continues to inspire and influence.

 

Mahnaz Motevalli is a medical director and Vice President of Children of Persia , a charitable organization in United States . She has been directly working in the project management committee of COP for construction of the Zabol medical clinic and Working & Street Kids' projects. In her professional work, Ms. Motevalli serves as an International Program coordinator setting up and managing medical clinics in Uganda and China.

 

Hamid Naficy is the John Evans Professor of Communication, teaching film and media studies in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at Northwestern University . His areas of research and teaching include documentary and ethnographic films; cultural studies of diaspora, exile, and postcolonial cinemas and media; and Iranian and Middle Eastern cinemas. His books are: An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place, The Making of Exile Cultures: Iranian Television in Los Angeles, Otherness and the Media: the Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged, and Iran Media Index. His forthcoming book is Cinema, Modernity, and National Identity: A Social History of a Century of Iranian Cinema (Duke University Press). He has also published extensively in Persian, including a two-volume book on documentary cinema theory and history, Film-e Mostanad. He has lectured widely internationally and his works have been reprinted extensively and translated into many languages.

 

Sarvenaz Nouri is in her last year at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health pursuing a Master of Health Science in Reproductive Biology and Cancer Biology. Last summer, Sarvenaz worked as an intern in Iran surveying knowledge, attitude, and behavior of people living with HIV/AIDS in Triangular AIDS clinics of two provinces in Iran . She is currently applying to medical school in order to continue her education in public health with a focus on International Health in particular.

 

Atieh Novin is a second year Public Health student at Johns Hopkins University . She interned in Iran in the summer of 2006 working on the prevalence and incidence of infectious diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. She plans to pursue a medical degree and work as an international health activist, especially in third world countries where the demand for health care specialists is high.

 

Brian Oliner, Esq., has been a trial attorney for over 20 years. After a career in government service, representing various government agencies, including matters of child abuse and neglect, he left his position as Assistant Attorney General for the State of Maryland and is currently of Counsel to the Law Firm of Davis, Agnor, Rapaport & Skalny, LLC.  He serves on the board of several non-profits, including Children of Persia, the Iran Cultural and Educational Center, United Way of Central Maryland's Howard County Community Partnership Board, and FIRN (an NGO providing assistance and referrals for the foreign born).  He has lectured on numerous topics including the operation of NGO's in Iran .  He is currently conducting research and studying in the fields of Civil Society, Rule of Law and Human Rights.

 

Ramin Ostadhosseini is a senior at George Mason University pursuing a major in Economics with minors in Spanish and Mathematics. The son of Iranian immigrants, Mr. Ostadhosseini frequently visits Iran and is tri-lingual in English, Spanish, and Farsi. In the summer of 2003 his globe trekking began with a 2 month stay in Nicaragua where as a part of Global Learning he worked with locals to promote the advancement of public education in Latin America . In the fall of 2005 Ramin spent five months studying Economics in Chile during which time he traveled through South America embarking on a 25 hour bus journey through Brazil and Argentina. Most recently, this September, Ramin's hometown of Fairfax, Virginia saw his return from a two-month internship as a Junior Market Analyst in California.

 

Shabnam Rezaei is the founder and Editor-In-Chief of PersianMirror.com, an online magazine with a mission of bringing Iranian culture to the world. She is also the co-founder of Norooz Productions, aiming to teach children about culture through entertainment. Their first film Babak & Friends – A First Norooz , highlighting the Persian New Year, has won several international awards. Norooz Productions won the 2005 NYU business plan competition at the Stern School of Business. The bilingual animation was also sponsored by Apple around the world and screened at prestigious museums such as Washington 's Smithsonian and London 's British Museum . Shabnam has extensive marketing, sales, software design, and PR experience. With a BS in Computer Science, a BA in German Literature from the University of Pennsylvania , and an MBA from New York University , she has spent most of her professional career developing and marketing financial software solutions to market makers. Her clients include Bank of America, JP Morgan, and ING. Shabnam has held managerial positions at EXIS, and Deloitte & Touche and is an expert in Capital Markets. She is currently the Head of Professional Services for Misys, one of largest industry-specific software companies in the world. In 2006, Shabnam received a WAALM award of Excellence in Media for PersianMirror for “Best Electronic Magazine”. She speaks English, German, Persian, French, and Spanish and has been published numerous times. Shabnam is a frequent guest speaker at professional gatherings and cultural conferences and has also appeared on ABC, VOA and CNN.

 

Persheng Sadegh- Vaziri is an award-winning independent filmmaker, born and raised in Tehran , Iran . When the revolution in Iran broke out she was compelled to stay in the US , where she received her BA from Trinity College in Hartford , Ct. , and an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University . She has worked as producer for Deep Dish TV on a series about the war in Iraq , for Trinity TV on documentaries about 9/11 and for Internews Network on programs that promote dialogue between societies in conflict. She has also worked for the award-winning PBS series POV , taught film in Boston and New York , and curated a documentary film festival in Tehran . Her personal documentaries about Iran were broadcasted on PBS and have been shown widely in museums, art houses and universities. They are: Women Like Us , 2002; A Place Called Home , 1998; Far From Iran , 1990; and finally Journal from Tehran , 1987, a memoir of war days in Tehran , which was a prize winner screened at the Independent Focus series of PBS. Her work is distributed by Women Make Movie s .

 

Tahereh Sariban is a dual national of Belgium and France, with Russian and Iranian roots. She holds a BA in Political Science (with Honors) from McGill University in Montreal, as well as a Masters degree from the School of International Relations, which is affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is fluent in English, French and Farsi, has a working knowledge of Dutch, and can also hold a conversation in Russian. She has worked in a number of private and non-profit positions including internships with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC and the UNCHR in Tehran. She has also served as a cultural representative of the Embassy of Switzerland in Tehran. She has lived or studied in Iran, Belgium, Russia and Canada and traveled extensively. Based in Tehran for the past three and a half years, she is currently working as a political analyst with Atieh Bahar Consulting.

 

Sara Sarkhili is a member of the Iranian Studies Group (ISG) at MIT. Her background is in Engineering and Physics. She received a B.S in Applied Physics from Shiraz University , and an M.S in Electrical Engineering from Boston University . She has worked with Mathworks and Raytheon in the past and is currently employed at the U.S Patent Office.

 

Homa Sarshar is a published author and an award-winning journalist, writer, media personality, and lecturer. Throughout her 40 year career with Iranian print, radio, and television, she has done more than 1500 interviews and has produced and anchored as many radio and TV programs. She has also produced a collection of twenty video documentaries on exiled Iranian writers, poets, and artists, some of which has been acquired by the Library of Congress. She is the author of two books and the editor of twelve other volumes, including five volumes of the Iranian Women's Studies Foundation Journal and four volumes of The History of Contemporary Iranian Jews. Her latest book Shaban Jafari was the number one best selling Persian book in Iran and abroad in the year 2003. In 1995, she founded the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History in Los Angeles , an organization that has succeeded in collecting a wealth of information and documentation about the life and history of Jews in Iran . Since 1998, she has been working with a satellite television network in the United States as a writer, producer, and host of various programs. Her show is broadcast weekly throughout the United States , Europe, and Iran . Sarshar has received numerous awards for her work, including the Medal for Special Achievement in Women's Rights, given by The Iranian Women's Organization of Tehran, Iran, the Journalism Award: Distinguished Iranian Women by The Encyclopaedia Iranica, and Commendation for community affairs services by County of Los Angeles.

 

Farzad Sharafi lives in Portland, Oregon. He immigrated to the United States in 1993 from Kurdistan, Iran.  Upon completing an MA in International Conflict Resolution in June 2007, he plans to pursue PhD studies in political sociology. He is predominantly interested in studying the social processes of popular youth culture in contemporary Iran . He is currently conducting research on variations in the expression of Kurdish ethnic identity in Iran . In 2000, he convinced a local high school to teach Ferdowsi's epic Rostam and Sohrab as part of its required language arts program, which successfully continues to this day. He is actively involved in prompting community organization efforts in Oregon 's Iranian community and serves as the chief organizer for the 2007 Kurdish Nourouz celebrations in Portland.

 

Kathryn Spellman received her MSc. and PhD in Politics and Sociology from Birkbeck College, University of London. Her research interests include: transnational migration movements; religion and gender in contemporary societies; Iran and Iranian diasporic studies; and Libyan studies. Her book is entitled: Religion and Nation: Iranian Local and Transnational networks in Britain (Berghahn Publishers, Oxford and New York, 2005). Ms. Spellman is a faculty associate of Syracuse Univesrity and a lecturer of sociology at their London campus. She currently teaches the following courses: Migration and Diasporas; Religion, Identity and Power; Multicultural London; Gender, Nation and Identity and Modern Social Theory. She is a Research Associate at the London Middle East Institute at School of Oriental and African Studies and is on the Editorial Board of the Middle East in London magazine. She is a researcher for projects relating to the Middle East and North Africa at a number of organisations including the English National Opera and the Manchester International Festival.

 

Daniel Yousef Tehrani is a native New Yorker and sophomore at Pomona College in Claremont , California . Mr. Tehrani is co-founder and co-president of the Iranian Students' Association of the Claremont Colleges. After graduating from high school in 2004, he spent a year in Iran continuing his study of the Persian language as well as Iranian traditional art music. Mr. Tehrani spent the winter of 2006-2007 interning at a non-governmental charitable organization in Iran, where he worked with children from low-income households “Bachehaye Kar va Kheyabani”. On his next trip, he hopes to continue learning about the activities of NGOs and civic-minded organizations in Iran.

 

Kazem Vafadari was born in 1973 in Yazd , Iran . He went to Tehran in 1999 to pursue a Masters Degree in the field of Theoretical Economics and worked for two years with Iran 's Customs Administration before enrolling in a Ph.D. program at Ritsumeikan University Japan in 2003. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in the field of Asia Pacific Studies. Since starting his Ph.D. program, he has been the recipient of awards including Ritsumeikan Scholarship, HEIWA NAKAJIMA (Peace scholarship) from Japan and The Houtan Scholarship from the U.S. He is currently conducting research on marketing Iranian tourism in East Asia and Japan as a Ph.D. student. His research background includes work on the following topics: Iran 's non-oil exports and the role of Iranian-free industrial and economic zones, Iran-Japan tourism relations, and Iranian immigration to Japan. 

 

Abbas Zeineddin has over six years of nonprofit and government experience in community development, housing and homelessness.  During his five years (2001-2006) at the Community Development Commission of Los Angeles County, his responsibilities included planning, public outreach & marketing, and analysis of federal housing legislation and regulations.  From 1999 to 2001, he was a Project Manager with Shelter Partnership, a nonprofit organization whose main goal is to attain practical solutions to end homelessness in Los Angeles County through legislation, advocacy and affordable housing. He holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Georgia Institute of Technology and has recently moved back to the Atlanta area after living in Southern California for several years.  Abbas was born in Tehran and migrated to the U.S. with his family as a teenager. They settled in Atlanta , where he lived continuously until leaving for  Southern California.