Leading expert in U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues, and author of Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind and The Shah.
As the director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, Abbas Milani possesses unparalleled expertise in U.S.-Iran relations and in Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.
Milani gained widespread international recognition following the publication of his book, The Shah, in 2011, which received universal acclaim. Reviewers praised its depth of scholarship and Milani’s impartiality in addressing such a controversial topic, with David C. Acheson of the Washington Times describing it as “impressive” in its research and analysis and Acheson stating that The Shah is “likely to be the definitive biography of its subject.”
His new book, Simorgh: Portraits on My Mind, is an entralling look at some of Iran’s most renowned writers, politicians, scholars, and activists – contemporaries of Milani and their struggles amidst the saga of the rise of the Islamic regime in Iran.
Milani joined Stanford in 2003 and became the founding director of the Iranian Studies Program in 2005. He also worked with two colleagues to launch the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution, where he is a research fellow and co-director.
Previously, Milani was a research fellow at the Iranian Center for Social Research and an assistant professor at the National University of Iran. He taught at Tehran University’s Faculty of Law and Political Science, where he also served on the Board of Directors of the university’s Center for International Relations.
Milani served for 14 years as Chair of the Political Science Department at Notre Dame de Namur University. He was a Research Fellow at the U.C. Berkeley’s Middle East Center for eight years.
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