Advisory Committee

Arezou Azad, Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Invisible East Programme, Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford; Professor and Chair of the Arts and Heritage of Afghanistan, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco), Paris

Dr. Azad has authored four other peer-reviewed books: The Rise and Fall of the Barmakids (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), The Warehouse of Bamiyan: Economic Life in Medieval Afghanistan (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Faḍāʾil-i Balkh or “The Merits of Balkh”, an annotated translation of a 13th-century history of Balkh (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2013).

 

Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo, FEZANA Associate Professor in Zoroastrian Languages and Literatures, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (UTSG) 

Professor Toledo has previously held academic positions at the University of Salamanca, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Copenhagen, and Free University of Berlin. He specializes in the fields of Old and Middle Iranian languages and literatures, Zoroastrianism, and Indo-Iranian linguistics.

 

Victoria Tahmasebi-Birgani, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies Institute, Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto at Mississauga

Dr. Tahmasebi is an interdisciplinary scholar whose areas of specialization encompass feminist theories in relation to continental and transnational contexts; critical theories of women’s movements in the Middle East; digital activism; gender and ethics of non-violence; contemporary history of social and political thought.

 

Azita Hojatollah Taleghani, Associate Professor of Persian, Departments of Language Studies (UTM) and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (UTSG)

Professor Talaghani’s research has primarily focused on linguistic approaches in modern Persian literature, especially stylistic aspects in poems of Persian women poets, Persian syntax and morphology, second-language learners and heritage speaker’s pedagogy, as well as web-based and online language teaching. She has also worked in lexicography and dictionary editing.

 

Michael Chagnon, Curator, Aga Khan Museum

Michael Chagnon is a museum curator specializing in painting and the arts of the book from the early modern Persianate sphere. He was appointed Curator at the Aga Khan Museum in May 2019. Dr. Chagnon has previously held curatorial posts at the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and Japan Society, and served in curatorial capacities for exhibitions at New-York Historical Society and Asia Society Museum. Dr. Chagnon also has substantial teaching experience, including a graduate seminar on “Critical Approaches to Persianate Painting” at Columbia University and a masterclass series on Islamic manuscripts at the New York Public Library.

 

Fahmida Suleman, Senior Curator, Royal Ontario Museum

Dr. Fahmida Suleman is the Senior Curator of ROM’s Islamic World collections and is cross-appointed as an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto (status only). Since joining ROM, she has curated Unmasking the Pandemic: From Personal Protection to Personal Expression (2021–2022); Being and Belonging: Contemporary Women Artists from the Islamic World and Beyond (2023–2024); and Picnics and Pastimes in 17th-century Iran (2024–2025). Prior to this, she was the Phyllis Bishop Curator for the Modern Middle East at the British Museum and co-curated the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World (2018). Fahmida is dedicated to curating projects that reach new audiences, engage visitors on contemporary global issues, and highlight complex stories about the peoples of the Islamic world and the diaspora, including marginalized voices, diverse faith communities, makers, and artists.

Farzaneh Hemmasi, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto

Professor Hemmasi is the author of the award-winning monograph Tehrangeles Dreaming: Intimacy and Imagination in Southern California’s Iranian Pop Music (Duke University Press, 2020), an ethnographic account of the Los Angeles-based postrevolutionary Iranian expatriate culture industries. Tehrangeles Dreaming was the inaugural winner of the Hamid Naficy Book Award. Prof. Hemmasi’s other publications consider the transnational circulation of political music and poetry between diaspora and homeland; Googoosh and the post-revolutionary political metaphorization of the Iranian female singing voice; and Iranian twentieth century “New Poetry” and popular music; these have appeared in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (2017), Popular Communication (2017), Popular Music (2017), Ethnomusicology (2013), and Mahoor Music Quarterly (2008). She has also contributed to two edited volumes, Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities (University of Hawaii Press, 2017) and Muslim Rap, Halal Soaps, and Revolutionary Theater: Artistic Developments in the Muslim World (University of Texas Press, 2011).

Claudia Yaghoobi, Roshan Distinguished Professor of Persian Studies, Director of the Center for the Middle East and Islamic Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

Claudia Yaghoobi is a Roshan Distinguished Professor of Persian Studies and serves as the 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. Yaghoobi earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Feminist Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2013. Leveraging her extensive knowledge and expertise, she teaches diverse courses encompassing Iranian literature and culture, Middle Eastern literature, gender and sexuality, diaspora studies, and human rights. A true embodiment of her multifaced identity, Yaghoobi identifies as an Iranian Armenian American. Her research encapsulates the literary landscape of the Middle East, with an acute emphasis on Persian and Armenian literature. Particularly, she hones on the experiences of those who belong to sexual, ethnic, and religious minority groups, often positioned at the periphery of normative society. Through her academic inquiry, she delves into the nuanced intersections of liminality as they are expressed by authors, artists, and directors, who valiantly challenge and deconstruct prevailing social hegemonies.

 

 

Negar Banisafar, PhD student in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, and President of the Iranian Studies Students Forum 

Negar Banisafar is currently a PhD student in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University in Iran and two MAs, one in Dramatic Literature from Soore University in Iran and another in the study of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations from University of Toronto. She was a recipient of the Scholars-at-Risk Fellowship from the School of Graduate Studies and Massey College at the University of Toronto. In 2022, she received the Norman Itzkowitz Turkish Short Story Award for the best short story written in Modern Turkish.

Kaveh Abhari, Director & Vice Chair, Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute

Dr. Kaveh Abhari is a professor, scholar, and educator whose work illuminates the interplay between cultural understanding, organizational innovation, and systemic transformation as engines of human development. His research, teaching, and mentorship explore how knowledge, education, and technological evolution may be orchestrated to cultivate intellectual vitality, ethical leadership, and enduring cultural dialogue. Dedicated to bridging divides—whether disciplinary, societal, or global—Dr. Abhari advances a vision of progress rooted in human dignity, enriched by cultural heritage, and animated by a spirit of inquiry and imagination.

Stephen Wright, Dean, Faculty of Arts & Science, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto

Professor Stephen Wright joined the University of Toronto in 2008 as an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and became a full professor in 2016. He received his Bachelors of Science at the University of Toronto, a Masters of Science at McGill University and a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Wright is internationally recognized as a leading scientist in the emerging field of plant evolutionary genomics. His research makes use of genomic approaches to address long-standing evolutionary questions of both fundamental and applied importance, including the genome-wide extent and nature of adaptive evolution, and the factors driving the evolution of genome structure.

Professor Wright holds the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Population Genomics. He has held an EWR Steacie fellowship, and has also won the Steacie Prize for Natural Sciences in 2017 and the Margaret Dayhoff Award for Research Excellence in 2016. He was admitted to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Royal Society of Canada in 2015. In 2023, he was the winner of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution’s President’s Award for research excellence. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024 and is the Past President of the international Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

At U of T, Professor Wright served as chair and graduate chair of the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from 2019 to 2022. He served as interim chair and interim graduate chair from July to December 2023. Professor Wright was appointed Acting Dean from April 15 to June 30, 2025, while then-Dean Melanie Woodin prepared for her new role as President. He serves as Interim Dean from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. During these appointments, he has stepped away from his role as Vice-Dean, Research & Infrastructure, a position he has held since September 1, 2024.