Narges Bajoghli, Co-Founder
Ms. Narges Bajoghli is a PhD candidate in socio-cultural Anthropology at New York University, focusing on the production of media and popular culture in revolutionary societies. Along with Ms. Nikoo Paydar, Ms. Bajoghli co-founded IAAB in 2003, overseeing, among others, the development of its International Conferences on the Iranian Diaspora, Camp Ayandeh, and co-curating TRANSFORM/NATION: Contemporary Art of Iran and Its Diaspora, sister exhibitions in Washington DC and Tehran, summer 2007. Ms. Bajoghli received her M.A. in the Social Sciences, focusing on Anthropology, from the University of Chicago, and her B.A. from Wellesley College in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies. As the recipient of the Susan Knafel Fellowship, Ms. Bajoghli spent three semesters researching at the University of Tehran's Faculty of Law and Political Science, and developing projects focusing on the victims of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. After her research in Iran, she was awarded a place at the Hedgebrook Writer's Residency. Ms. Bajoghli has worked extensively with non-profit organizations in Iran and Latin America and has spent time studying at the University of Havana, Cuba, La Casa de las Americas, Cuba, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS). She is currently developing and curating art exhibitions and exchanges in Havana and Tehran with Ms. Paydar.

Ramin Bajoghli, Former Co-Executive Director and Board Member
Mr. Ramin Bajoghli graduated from Boston University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and in Political Science. Mr. Bajoghli has worked with IAAB since its inception in 2003, holding numerous positions including New England Area Coordinator, Operations Coordinator, Development Coordinator, and most recently, Co-Executive Director. Prior to his work with IAAB, Mr. Bajoghli was an active member of Global Learning (GL), a non-profit/non-governmental organization dedicated to the advancement of public education in Latin America. While working with GL, he served as a Country Coordinator in San Jorge, Nicaragua, leading a group of 25 volunteers from 4 different countries to teach over 400 children in 5 public schools. Currently, Mr. Bajoghli is a freelance photographer and TV Producer working mainly in Washington D.C. and New York City. Mr. Bajoghli's interest in film, photography, travel, and social issues led him to direct, write, and produce numerous projects in Nicaragua and Iran including Only In Iran!, a short documentary/narrative exploring the dual identities of Iranian-Americans. He is currently working on several projects including a documentary, entitled In Search of Socrates.

Shirin Hakimzadeh, Former Co-Executive Director and Board Member
Ms. Shirin Hakimzadeh is in her final year at Georgetown University Law Center, where she serves as an Executive Notes Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. Ms. Hakimzadeh holds a bachelor degree with honors from Rice University in her hometown of Houston, and a master's degree from Oxford University, where she studied Social and Cultural Anthropology as the recipient of the Wagoner Scholarship. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Mexico, Chile, and London, where she wrote her master's thesis on the integration of second-generation Iranians. Since then, she has written several articles on the Iranian foreign-born in the US and on migration issues relevant to Iran for the Migration Policy Institute. Ms. Hakimzadeh is particularly interested in immigration, asylum, national security, and criminal law. In 2009, she successfully co-represented a Cameroonian asylum seeker in removal proceedings before an immigration court. Upon graduation, Ms. Hakimzadeh will be clerking for the Honorable G. Murray Snow in the District of Arizona.

Amy Malek, Board Member
Ms. Amy Malek is a PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Sociocultural Anthropology. Her primary interest is in visual anthroplogy and the study of visual culture, media, and the negotiation of diasporic identity through cultural production in Iran and the Iranian diaspora. Ms. Malek has worked with IAAB since its inception in 2003, serving in multiple roles. She graduated summa cum laude from Emory University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and International Studies, and holds an M.A. in Anthroplogy from UCLA and an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from NYU, where she was a MacCracken Fellow. Alongside her graduate studies, Ms. Malek is currently curating an exhibition of Iranian-American documentary photography to be held at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles in the summer of 2010.

Nikoo Paydar, Co-Founder and Board Member
Ms. Nikoo Paydar is a PhD student at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, focusing on representations of Middle Eastern women in early twentieth-century French art. In July 2008, she completed her M.A. in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute as a Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation Scholar. Ms. Paydar worked at the Smithsonian Institution Office of Policy and Analysis in Washington, D.C. and was the 2005 Contemporary Curatorial Intern at the Drawing Center in New York City. She holds a B.A. in the History of Art from Tufts University, where she was a Citizenship and Public Service Scholar and a Tufts Institute for Leadership and International Perspective Student Fellow. Ms. Paydar studied for one year at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she created a photo-journal exhibition of Iranian lifestyle and culture that was shown in Boston and London. She co-curated IAAB's TRANSFORM/NATION: Contemporary Art of Iran and Its Diaspora and is currently developing and curating art exhibitions and exchanges in Havana and Tehran with Ms. Bajoghli.