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translating that book he realized that he needs to gain more expertise in order to apply quantitative methods for literary analysis of the pre-modern Persian texts. Therefore he decided to come to University of Maryland where world-famous scholars in digital humanities and Persian literature have already started the Persian digital humanities project. Mehdy is a published novelist and his first novel, The Secret of Silence, or Hamlet According to Shakespeare’s Sister was published by Morvarid publications in 2009. He is also an avid tennis fan and play tennis whenever he finds free time.
Nahid Ahmadian
Nahid is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland, College Park. She gained her first Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Tehran where she taught English and world literature during and after graduation. Nahid has published peer-reviewed articles and translation books in western philosophy and drama. Her translations include An Introduction to Modern European Philosophy (2008), Nietzsche, an Introduction (2009), After Dinner Joke (2016 & 2018), and Fen: A Play (2019). Her other translations on Hegelian philosophy and British drama are forthcoming. She teaches World Literature, World Literature by Women, Persian Literature in Translation and Academic Writing at the University of Maryland. Nahid has served as a researcher in a two-year project on Persian fiction with the Academy of Persian Language and Literature and as a reviewer in Theatre Quarterly, an Iranian journal on dramatic literature. She is focused on post-revolutionary Iranian theater for her dissertation. Her areas of interest include Iranian theater, drama adaptation, Middle Eastern theater, Persian literature, literary translation, dramaturgy, and theater historiography.
Q-mars Haeri
Q-mars Haeri is a Ph.D. candidate in the Theatre and Performance Studies program at the University of Maryland. He obtained his MA from Maryland Institute College of Arts in 2015 and wrote his thesis on the significant role that religious passion plays (ta’zieh) have played in the development of other genres of theatre in Iran. His 2013 adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s He Who Said Yes, He Who Said No produced by the Vaahe Art Collaborative was selected by Iran International Festival of University Theater for a month-long public performance in Tehran and it went on to be performed at the Iran International Fadjr Festival in 2014. At the University of Maryland, he investigates the popular theatre of mid-century Tehran and the Lalehzar entertainment district. His research is jointly guided by the faculty of the PhD program in Theatre and Performance Studies and the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies. He collaborated in creating three issues of the Roshangar Journal and worked on Digital humanities projects of Roshan.
Born in Pakistan and raised in the United States, Sara received her MAIS in Women and Gender Studies with a focus in Sufism from George Mason University in 2012. Her master’s thesis – “Beyond Binary Barzakhs: Using the Theme of Liminality in Islamic Thought to Question the Gender Binary” – reflects on the works of Ibn Arabi, Rumi, and Bulleh Shah, presenting a fresh perspective on the experiences of those who identify as hijras or “third genders” in South Asia. Sara is currently a doctoral student at the University of Maryland’s Women’s Studies PhD program, continuing her focus on Sufism which explains her connection to Persian Studies and her interest in learning the language. She has years of professional experience working for international NGOs including United Nations platform committees.
Niloo Sarabi

Abbas Jamshidi was born and raised in Shiraz, Iran. He has a Master’s Degree from Shiraz University in English Language and Literature and has taught English literature at Azad University. As a doctoral student at the University of Maryland’s Comparative Literature Program he has benefited from Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak’s expertise in modern Persian literature and icompleted his PhD dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Karimi-Hakkak and Dr. Brian Richardson (English Department). In his dissertation he examines anti-Arab representation in Persian (with a focus on Sadeq Hedayat) and English literature (with a focus on Salman Rushdie). He focuses on the genealogy of anti-Arab representation in these literatures; racialization of Arabs as distinct from and inferior to the Persians/Indians/British; and how novel forms of representation continue to be crafted in the two literary traditions to demean and denigrate the Arabs. In a recent year-long trip to India, he explored the role of India, specifically its local Parsi (Zoroastrian) community, in the production of anti-Arab discourse over time.

Roshan Institute Fellow for Excellence in Persian Studies
Safoura Nourbakhsh was born and raised in Iran, Tehran. After receiving her BA and MA in English Literature from San Francisco State University, she returned to Iran in 1992 and taught English literature courses at Allameh University from 1997-2003. Her interest in feminist theory and women’s right also prompted her involvement with Zanan magazine as a writer and an occasional consultant. Her Persian translation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of It’s Own (2004, Niloofar Publishing) is the first published translation of the book.Safoura started her PhD degree in women’s studies at University of Maryland in the Fall of 2005. While working on her PhD she also became the managing editor of Sufi (a biannual journal of mystical philosophy and practice). Later she helped plan design, and execute Zannegaar (an online journal of women’s studies) and acted as it’s project manager and editor for the first four issues. Safoura taught “Iranian women writers in Translation” at the University of Maryland. Safoura is the recipient of the first Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies. Safoura is currently working on her dissertation “Gender and Sexuality in Persian expressions of Sufism.” The following chapters of her dissertation are in progress: an ethnography of women in the Nimatullahi Sufi order, Women in the Persian biographies of Sufi Saints (from Hujwiri to Attar), women as representations of ego (nafs) and male desire in Sufi literature (Rumi and Attar), the gender of love in Sufi literature (Ghazali).