Our People
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Armin Yavari FRSA ALS
Founding Chair
Armin holds master’s degrees in contemporary history and politics and history of art. He is an associate fellow at the University of St Andrews and works at a leading biotech consulting group.
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Michael Pye PhD MLitt
Co-Founding Chair
Michael was the Mahmoud Khayami Scholar at the University of St Andrews, where he undertook an MLitt and PhD in Iranian studies. He is a charity trustee and works in investment management.
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Naciem Nikkhah PhD
Senior Fellow
Naciem presented at Symposia Iranica in 2013 and 2017, helped coordinate our third biennial at Pembroke College, was awarded a doctorate by the University of Cambridge in 2020, and works in EdTech.
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Mahroo Moosavi PhD
Senior Fellow
Mahroo presented at Symposia Iranica in 2015, 2017 and 2019. She received her PhD from Sydney in 2019 and is the Oliver Smithies Visiting Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford.
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Richard McClary PhD
Senior Fellow
Richard presented at Symposia Iranica in 2013, 2015 & 2017. He received his PhD from Edinburgh in 2015 and is Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of York.
Advisory board
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Ali M Ansari FRSE FRHistS
Ali is founding director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews, trustee of the Sarikhani Foundation, Persian Language Online committee member, and an honorary vice president and a past president of the British Institute of Persian Studies.
Honorary Symposiarch, First and Fourth Symposia Iranica (2013 and 2019)
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Sussan Babaie
Professor of the Arts of Iran and Islam
Sussan is the incoming president of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, a governor of and professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art, trustee at the Athena Art Foundation, and past president of the Historians of Islamic Art Association.
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Carole Hillenbrand FBA FRSE FRHistS FRAS CBE OBE
Emerita Professor of Islamic History
Carole is a triple-award winning author, emerita of the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews, trustee of the Gibb Trust, and a judge since 2018 for the Wolfson History Prize, the UK’s most valuable non-fiction writing prize.
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Robert Hillenbrand FBA FRSE
Emeritus Professor of Islamic Art
Robert is a multi-award winning author, emeritus of the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, honorary vice president of the British Institute of Persian Studies, honorary fellow of the Ancient India and Iran Trust, and is editor of several book series for Edinburgh University Press.
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Charles Melville
Emeritus Professor of Persian History
Charles is president of the British Institute of Persian Studies, co-convenor of the Soudavar Memorial Foundation’s Idea of Iran series, director of the Shahnama Project and Centre, fellow of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at Hamburg University, and emeritus of the University of Cambridge.
Honorary Symposiarch, Second and Third Symposia Iranica (2015 and 2017)
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Andrew Peacock FBA FSA
Professor of Middle East Studies
Andrew is founding director of the Centre for Anatolian and the Eastern Mediterranean Studies at the University of St Andrews, a trustee of the British Institute of Persian Studies, has been the PI of multiple ERC funded projects, and is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
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Christine van Ruymbeke FRAS
Ali Reza and Mohamed Soudavar Professor of Persian Literature and Culture
Christine is a trustee of the Ancient India and Iran Trust and the Royal Belgian Benevolent Society, secretary of the Societas Iranologica Europaea, College Praelector at Darwin College, Iran Heritage Foundation’s academic committee member, and a professor at the University of Cambridge.
Guest editors
Academic contributors
This initiative is critically dependent on the voluntary services of the academics who, whether as advisers, mentors, trustees, hosts, invitors, referees, peer reviewers, chairs, discussants, speakers, or prize adjudicators, generously perform a wide and crucial range of tasks for which they are unremunerated.
All of this constitutes an unquantifiable voluntary contribution without which Symposia Iranica would be impossible to hold. In addition to in-kind support, many have also contributed funds from institutional and personal sources to enable us to commit more of our grants towards subsidising our early career participants. We are very pleased to acknowledge them here and thank them for being involved.
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Pejman Abdolmohammadi
Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Trento
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Ladan Akbarnia
Formerly Curator and Assistant Keeper, Islamic Collections, British Museum
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Lindsay Allen
Lecturer in Greek and Near Eastern History, King’s College London
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Roham Alvandi
Associate Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science
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Ali M Ansari
Professor of Iranian History, Univerity of St Andrews
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Haleh Anvari
Artist and photographer
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Assef Ashraf
Assistant Professor in the Eastern Islamic Lands and Persian-Speaking World, University of Cambridge
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Michael Axworthy (1962-2019)
Senior Lecturer in the Modern History of Iran, University of Exeter
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Sussan Babaie
Professor of the Arts of Iran and Islam, Courtauld Institute of Art
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Parita Bagheri
Philanthropist, Orthodontist, and Scholar
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Oliver Bast
Professor of Persian Studies, New Sorbonne University
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Evrim Binbaş
Formerly Associate Professor in Early Modern Asian Empires, Royal Holloway, University of London
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François de Blois
Independent Scholar and Senior Research Associate, University College London
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Moya Carey
Formerly Iran Heritage Foundation Curator for the Iranian Collections, Victoria and Albert Museum
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John Curtis FBA
Former Keeper, Middle East Department, British Museum
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Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
Curator of Middle Eastern Coins, British Museum
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Yasmin Faghihi
Head of Near and Middle Eastern Department, Cambridge University Library
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Narguess Farzad
Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies, SOAS, University of London
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Hassan Fazeli
Formerly Visiting Professor, University of Reading
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Mahbod Ghaffari
Associate in Persian Language and Culture, University of Cambridge
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Maryam Ghorbankarimi
Lecturer in Film Practice, Lancaster University
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Melanie Gibson
Convenor, Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art, SOAS, University of London
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David Good
Director of the Silk Roads Programme, King’s College, University of Cambridge
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Tim Greenwood
Reader in Medieval History, University of St Andrews
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Jaakko Hameen-Anttila
Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Edinburgh
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Thomas Harrison
Professor of Ancient History, University of St Andrews
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Carole Hillenbrand FBA
Emerita Professor of Islamic History, Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh
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Robert Hillenbrand FBA
Emeritus Professor of Islamic Art, Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh
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Almut Hintze FBA
Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism, SOAS, University of London
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Shabnam Holliday
Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Plymouth
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Ramin Jahanbegloo
Vice Dean and Executive Director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace Studies, O.P. Jindal Global University
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Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
Emeritus Professor of Persian Language, Literature, and Cultures, University of Maryland
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Lorenz Korn
Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Bamberg
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Samuel Lasman
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Early-Career Research Fellow, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge
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Jane Lewisohn
Founding Director, Golha and Golistan Projects
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Leonard Lewisohn (1953-2018)
Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Persian and Sufi Literature, University of Exeter
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Professor of Ancient History, Cardiff University
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Paul Luft
Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies, Modern History, and Turcology, Durham University
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Roger Matthews FBA
Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Reading
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Charles Melville
Emeritus Professor of Persian History, University of Cambridge
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Firuza Melville
Director of Research, Pembroke Shahnama Centre for Persian Studies, University of Cambridge
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Kamiar Mohaddes
Associate Professor in Economics and Policy, University of Cambridge Judge Business School
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David Morgan (1945-2019)
Emeritus Professor of History and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Parmis Mozafari
Associate Lecturer in Persian, University of St Andrews
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Andrew Newman
Professor of Islamic Studies and Persian, University of Edinburgh
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Rad Niazadeh
Assistant Professor of Operations Management, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
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Laudan Nooshin
Professor of Music, City, University of London
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Nacim Pak-Shiraz
Professor of Cinema and Iran, University of Edinburgh
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Andrew Peacock FBA
Professor of Middle East Studies, University of St Andrews
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Evaleila Pesaran
Fellow in Politics and International Relations, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
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Judith Pfeiffer
Former Associate Professor of Islamic History, University of Oxford
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Cameron Petrie
Reader in South Asian and Iranian Archaeology, University of Cambridge
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Venetia Porter
Curator of Islamic and Contemporary Middle East Art, British Museum
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Nicholas Postgate
Emeritus Professor of Assyriology, University of Cambridge
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Siavush Randjbar-Daemi
Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History, University of St Andrews
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Lloyd Ridgeon
Reader in Islamic Studies, University of Glasgow
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Christine van Ruymbeke
Ali Reza and Mohamed Soudavar Professor of Persian Literature and Culture, University of Cambridge
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Nicholas Sims-Williams FBA
Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, SOAS, University of London
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Ursula Sims-Williams
Lead Curator, Persian Collections, British Library
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Chris Smith
Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge
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Annabelle Sreberny
Emerita Professor of Global Media and Communication Studies, SOAS, University of London
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Sarah Stewart
Shapoorji Pallonji Senior Lecturer in Zoroastrianism, SOAS, University of London
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Ilse Sturkenboom
Formerly Lecturer in Iranian Islamic Art, University of St Andrews
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Saeed Talajooy
Lecturer in Persian Literature and Culture, University of St Andrews
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Alan Williams
Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion, University of Manchester
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Tim Williams
Professor of Silk Roads Archaeology, University College London
Biennial conferences
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First Biennial
St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, 13-14 April 2013
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Second Biennial
Downing College, University of Cambridge, 8-9 April 2015
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Third Biennial
Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, 11-12 April 2017
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Fourth Biennial
St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, 13-14 April 2019