- Haleh Esfandiari
Haleh Esfandiari is director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she had earlier been a fellow in 1995-96. Ms. Esfandiari has worked as a journalist in Iran and taught at the College of Mass Communication in Tehran. She served as deputy secretary general of the Women's Organization of Iran and was the deputy director of a foundation at which she was responsible for the activities of several museums and art and cultural centers.
- Anousheh Ansari
Anousheh Ansari (born 12 September 1966) is the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, Inc. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X PRIZE. On September 18, 2006, just a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first female and fourth overall space tourist, the first female Muslim, and first Iranian in space.
- Reza Pahlavi
Reza Pahlavi is the former Crown Prince of Iran, the eldest son of late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his Empress Consort, Farah Diba. He succeeded his father as Head of the House of the Pahlavi dynasty and is currently the successor to the former Pahlavi throne of Iran. As such he is referred to by supporters as "His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah II".
- Azadeh Moaveni
Azadeh Moaveni is an Iranian-American journalist and writer.
- Ray Takeyh
Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His areas of specialization are Iran, political reform in the Middle East, and Islamist movements and parties. He is also a contributing editor of the National Interest.
- Vali Nasr
Vali Reza Nasr (b. 1960) is an Iranian-American academic and scholar, as well as Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University. An expert in contemporary Middle Eastern affairs and Islam and politics, in January, 2006, Nasr was named the Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think-tank focusing on foreign policy.
- Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi, Ph.D. (born December 1955) is an Iranian professor and writer who currently resides in the United States. Nafisi's bestselling book "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books" has gained a great deal of public attention and been translated into 32 languages.
- Jimmy Delshad
Jimmy Delshad is the Vice Mayor of Beverly Hills California. He is a persian Iranian immigrant who serves on the city council.
- Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University, a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of Iowa, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in History of Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Until recently, he was both Visiting Assistant Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Iowa and the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
- Shiva Rose
Shiva Rose McDermott, née Afshar, is an actress of Iranian and Irish descent. Since 19th November 1995, she has been married to American actor Dylan McDermott. In 1995, Shiva Rose met her husband in a coffee-shop near Santa Monica, California. McDermott has been quoted as saying that he heard a whisper to "look" once he was inside and that for him, it was love at first sight. Shiva says that whilst this was not the case for her, she was eventually won over by him.
- Cyrus Kar
Cyrus Kar (born March 18, 1961 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-born American film director, part-time professor at the University of Phoenix, and now-vindicated alleged terrorist who was captured by United States forces in Iraq on May 17, 2005. On July 10, 2005, he was released from custody after his family sued, accusing the U.S. government of violating his civil rights and detaining him after his clearance by the FBI.
- Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat is a contemporary visual artist who lives in New York. She is known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Shirin Neshat (b. 1957) was born in Qazvin, Iran. Her parents were upper middle-class. Her father was a well-respected physician and her mother, a homemaker. She grew up in a westernized household that adored the Shah of Iran and his ideologies. Neshat has stated about her father, “He fantasized about the west, romanticized the west, …
- Abbas Milani
Abbas Milani (born 1949) is an Iranian-American historian, Iranologist, and author. Milani is a Visiting Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. He is also a Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. Milani has found evidence that Persian modernism dates back to more than 1000 years ago. Graduating from Oakland Technical High School in 1966, …
- Goli Ameri
Goli Ameri was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs on March 19, 2008. She leads the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), which fosters mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries around the world. Assistant Secretary Ameris previous positions include service as a Presidentially nominated Representative to the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
- Hassan Nemazee
Hassan Nemazee is a multimillionaire Iranian-American investment banker, Iranian expatriate, and major contributor to the Democratic Party; he has been a longstanding Nemazee was born in Washington, D.C. on January 27, 1950 and attended Landon School, graduating in 1968. He received his AB degree with Honors from Harvard University in 1972. Nemazee, a naturalized American citizen, was abroad at the time of the Iranian revolution, …
- Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo, born 11 May 1952) is an Academy Award-nominated Iranian-American actress and self-proclaimed activist.
- Ramin Bahrani
Ramin Bahrani (born 20 March 1975 in North Carolina, USA) is an Iranian-American filmmaker, cinematographer and scriptwriter. After receiving his BA from Columbia University in New York City, Bahrani moved to Iran for three years and made his student thesis film, Strangers (2000). He is President of "Noruz Films". In 2005, he wrote and directed "Man Push Cart".
- Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour, CBE (born January 12, 1958) (in) is the chief international correspondent for CNN.
- Hooshang Amirahmadi
Hooshang Amirahmadi is a professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is also director of the University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Professor Amirahmadi has served as chair and graduate director of his department at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public PolicyBloustein School and as the University Coordinator of the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program.
- Catherine Bell
Catherine Lisa Bell (born August 14, 1968 in London, England) is a British-born Iranian-American actress best known as being David James Elliott's co-star as fiancee and best friend Lt. Colonel Sarah MacKenzie of the hit television show "JAG" from 1995 to 2005.
- Cyrus Nowrasteh
Cyrus Nowrasteh, born September 19, 1956, is an American screenwriter and director of theatrical films, television shows, and made-for-TV movies. He is best known for his involvement in the controversial docudrama "The Path to 9/11".
- Shaun Toub
Shaun Toub is a film and television actor. He was raised in Manchester, England. At the age of 14, he moved to Switzerland and after a two year stay, he crossed the Atlantic to Nashua, New Hampshire to finish his last year of high school. His high school yearbook notes: "The Funniest guy in school and the most likely to succeed in the entertainment world." After two years of college in Massachusetts, Shaun transferred to USC.
- Ross Mirkarimi
Ross Mirkarimi (b. 1961) is a progressive on the Board of Supervisors at City Hall in San Francisco, California. He was elected in 2004 to represent the city's fifth district, which encompasses the Haight-Ashbury, parts of Hayes Valley, Western Addition, Alamo Square and a portion of the Inner Sunset neighborhoods. Mirkarimi co-founded the California chapter of the Green Party.
- Pierre Omidyar
Unlike many other high-tech entrepreneurs, Omidyar didn't set out to become an Internet tycoon. Born in Paris, he moved to Maryland as a child when his father accepted a residency at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Hewrote his first computer program at age 14, to catalog books for the school library. He graduated from Tufts University in 1988 with a degree incomputer science and went to work for a company that developed Macintosh software.
- Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi presents a comprehensive, passionate, and insightful personal account on the evolution of Iranian art cinema in Close Up - Iranian Cinema: Past, Present and Future.
- Borzou Daragahi
Borzou Daragahi (born c. 1969) is a longtime print and radio journalist and the former Baghdad bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. A U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, he was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his coverage of Iraq and led the bureau that was named a 2007 Pulitzer finalist for its Iraq coverage. He has also covered Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the wider Middle East. Before joining the Los Angeles Times in 2005, …
- Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak is a Persian literary figure and Iranist. Ahmad Karimi Hakkak was a Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Washington for nineteen years. He is currently a Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Persian Studies in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Maryland. He is the author of numerous essays and scholarly books.
- Rudi Bakhtiar
Rudi Bakhtiar Rudi Bakhtiar is an Iranian-American journalist, working for the Fox News Channel. Although born in California, Bakhtiar was raised in Iran until the Iranian Revolution when her family moved to the United States. She attended University of California, Los Angeles, where she received a B.S. in biology, planning to be a dentist. Prior to Fox News, Bakhtiar had worked for CNN.
- Firouz Naderi
Firouz Naderi (Born in Shiraz) is an Iranian-American scientist and the Associate Director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) responsible for Project Formulation and Strategy. He received his Ph.D.from the University of Southern California in electrical engineering (writing his dissertation in the area of digital image processing) and joined JPL in 1979. His career at JPL has spanned system engineering, technology development and, …
- Afshin Ghotbi
Afshin Ghotbi (born February 8, 1964 in Shiraz, Iran) is an Iranian-American football coach who is currently working with the South Korean national team as an Assistant Coach to Pim Verbeek.
- Andre Agassi
Andre Kirk Agassi (born April 29 1970, in Las Vegas, Nevada) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from the United States who won eight Grand Slam singles tournaments and an Olympic gold medal in singles. He is one of only five male players to have won all four Grand Slam singles events during his career. He is the only player in the open era to have won every Grand Slam singles title, to have won the Tennis Masters Cup, …
- Hossein Nasr
Nasr is an internationally acclaimed scholar .Seyyed Hossein Nasr, (1933-), a University Professor of the department of Islamic studies at George Washington University, is a leading Iranian Muslim philosopher. He is the author of many scholarly books and articles. Nasr is a Persian philosopher and renowned scholar of comparative religion, a lifelong student and follower of Frithjof Schuon, and a prominent authority in the fields of Islamic esoterism, Sufism, …
- Davar Ardalan
Davar Ardalan is a Supervisory Producer at NPR News in Washington D.C. With over sixteen years experience in public broadcasting, Ardalan has produced hundreds of stories from profiles of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and actor and philanthropist Paul Newman to music features on legend Herbie Hancock and guitarmaker Paul Reed Smith to a cooking segment with culinary wizard Alton Brown. For two years, as Morning Edition’s overnight Supervisory Producer, …
- Dan Ahdoot
Dan Ahdoot is an Iranian-American Jewish stand-up comedian who primarily performs in New York City. He is well-known for being a contestant in NBC's reality TV show "Last Comic Standing" and for performing on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend". Ahdoot attended Johns Hopkins University and graduated with honors, expecting to attend medical school. According to jokes made in his act, he decided he "needed more economic security" in his life, …
- Janet Afary
Janet Afary is an Iranian author, feminist activist and researcher in history, political sciences and women studies. Her research field includes politics of contemporary Iran and gender and sexuality in modern Iran. She is known for her writings and research on the Persian Constitutional Revolution. Afary is an associate professor of Middle East Studies & Women's Studies at Purdue University.
- Esmail Nooriala
Dr. Esmail Nooriala, born in 1943 in Tehran, Iran, is an Iranian writer, poet, artist, movie director, and intellectual. His first collection of poems was published in 1962 and he has published eight more collections since then. His book "Sovar va Asbaab", published in 1968, deals with the critical and historical analysis of modern Persian poetry. He has directed two feature films and 20 documentaries and has taught Persian literature and culture at the Tehran University.
- Nima Arkani-Hamed
Nima Arkani-Hamed (born 1972) is a leading particle physicist and applied string theorist. He was born in the USA to Iranian parents (also physicists), became a Canadian citizen, and now is a full professor at Harvard University. Arkani-Hamed graduated from the University of Toronto with a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics, and went to the University of California, Berkeley for his graduate studies, where he worked under the supervision of Lawrence Hall.
- Azam Ali
Azam Ali is an Iranian musician/singer, who currently resides in Los Angeles.
- Omid Kordestani
Omid Kordestani is the Senior Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Field Operations of Google.
- Pedram Moallemian
Pedram Moallemian is a prominent Iranian-Canadian activist, writer and blogger, currently based in Southern California.