Biography
I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Sociology.
While in Iran pursuing a master's degree in Gender Studies, I worked as the senior assistant with the Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran project ( http://www.qajarwomen.org/en/ ), a digital archive hosted at Harvard University. Before arriving in the US, I did some graduate studies in Turkey at Middle East Technical University (METU) and Ankara University. There, my research was centered around transnational feminist solidarities. In Turkey, I also collaborated with the United Nations (UN) on their projects related to LGBTQI refugees in Turkey. I earned a Master’s in Sociology from Maxwell School and advanced certification in Gender Studies from Syracuse University. While there, I had the opportunity to work with the Feminist Freedom Warriors (FFW) project ( http://feministfreedomwarriors.org/ ), which is a digital project hosted at Syracuse University, Department of Women and Gender Studies.
Research Interests
Social movements, digital activism, youth and resistance, sociology of gender, decolonial feminism, Middle East studies, Iran and Turkey.
Awards and Honors
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) International Fellowship, The American Association of University Women, Academic year 2025-2026
Rita and Arnold Goodman Fellowship, the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity, UIUC, Academic year 2024-2025
The Strive Awards series’ Pat Morey Legacy Award, Women’s Resource Center at UIUC, 2025
Pat Morey Legacy award "is given annually to one student whose work in gender equity will have a lasting impact on campus."
The Evelyne Accad and Paul Vieille International Award, the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity, UIUC, 2025
The Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Scholarship Award for Doing Transnational Sociology, Department of Sociology, UIUC, 2025
Florian Znaniecki Graduate Student Publication Prize – awarded for best sole-authored published paper, Department of Sociology, UIUC, 2025
George L. Beslow Graduate Student Paper Award– awarded for best sole-authored sociology paper, Department of Sociology, UIUC, 2025
Awardee of the Clark McPhail Collaborative Research Award, Department of Sociology, UIUC, 2024-2025
Summer Writing Fellowship, Department of Sociology, UIUC, 2024
Courses Taught
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Introduction to Sociology (leading sections)- Spring 2022-23
Ranked as outstanding by the students
Introduction to Sociology (leading sections)- Fall 2022-23
Ranked as excellent by the students
Syracuse University- Maxwell School
Sociological Theories- Spring 2020-21
Ranked as excellent by the students
Additional Campus Affiliations
The Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity
External Links
Highlighted Publications
Fractal scaling of feminist politics and the emergence of woman, life, freedom movement in Iran, Social Forces 2025
A decolonial feminist inquiry into women’s agency in the urban landscape in 19th-century Iran, Journal of Gender & Development 2024
Ali Shariati and Crafting a Collective Revolutionary Islamic Identity for Women: A Socio-Historical Perspective, Journal of Asian and African Studies 2023
Pandemic within a Pandemic (within a Pandemic): Unraveling a Pedagogy of Possibilities, The RAACES 2022