Previous Winners
The following scholars have received The Foundation's Ph.D. dissertation award over the past years:
2021 Paul Gerard Anderson
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. A Deluge of Tears: The Conflux of Persian Shi`i Literature, Ritual, and Identity in Martyrdom Narratives
2020 Khalil Andani
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. Revelation in Islam: Qur’ānic, Sunni, and Shiʿi Ismaili Perspectives
2019 Muhammad Umar Faruque
Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley. The Labyrinth of Subjectivity: Constructions of the Self from Mullā Ṣadrā to Muḥammad Iqbāl
2018 Viola Allegranzi
Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, Sorbonne Paris Cité, and Naples, L'Orientale. Les Inscriptions Persanes de Ghazni, Afghanistan: Nouvelles sources pour l’étude de l’histoire culturelle et de la tradition épigraphique ghaznavides (Ve-VIe/XIe-XIIe siècles)
2017 Kusha Sefat
Board of Graduate School, Queen's College, University of Cambridge. Tehran: The Politics of Things
2016 Salimeh Maghsoudlou
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, CNRS et Sorbonne. La pensée de 'Ayn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadānī (m. 525/1132), entre avicennisme et héritage ġazālien
2015 Daniel Beben
Faculty of the Graduate School of Indiana University, The Legendary Biographies of Nâsir-i Khusraw: Memory and Textualization in Early Modern Persian Ismâ`îlism
2014 Eric Sander Lob
Faculty of Princeton University, An Institutional History of the Iranian Construction Jihad: From Inception to Institutionalization, 1979-2011
2013 Ata Anzali
Faculty of Religious Studies, Rice University, Safavid Shi`ism, the Eclipse of Sufism and the Emergence of `Irfan
2012 D. Gershon Lewental
Faculty of Graduate School of Arts and Siences, Brandeis University, Qadisiyyah, Then and Now: A Case Study of History and Memory, Religion , and Nationalism in Middle Eastern Discourse
2011 Roham Alvandi
Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University, Nixon, Kissinger and the Shah: US-Iran Relations and the Cold War, 1969-1976
2010 Zuzanna Olszewska
Faculty of Anthropology, Wolfson College, Oxford University Poetry and its Social Contexts among Afghan Refugees in Iran
2009 Francesca Leoni
Faculty of Art and Archeology, Princeton University The Revenge of Ahriman: Images of Divs in the Shahnama, ca. 1300-1600
2008 Shahrokh Razmjou
Faculty of Birkbeck College, University of London Ritual Practices at Persepolis
2007 Alyssa Gabbay
Faculty of the Division of Humanities, the University of chicago The Language of Tolerance: Amir Khusraw and the Development of Indo-Persian Culture
2006 Sarah Bowen Savant
Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University Finding Our Place in the Past:Geneology and Ethnicity in Islam
2005 Dagmar A. Riedel
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Searching for the Islamic Episteme: The Status of Historical Information in Medieval Middle-Eastern Anthological Writing
2004 Cyrus Schayegh
Graduate School of Arts and sciences, Columbia University Science, Medicine, and Class in the Formation of Semi-Colonial Iran in the 1900-1940s
2003 Deborah Gerber Tor
Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University From Holy Warriors to Chivalric Order: The Ayyars in the Eastern Islamic World, A.D. 800-1055
2002 Mohammad-Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam
Faculty of History, Sorbonne Nouvelle (Universite Paris III) Les missions archeologiques Francaises et la question des antiquites en Perse (1884-1914)
2001 Shafique Nizarali Virani
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University Seekers of Union: The Ismailis from the Mongol Debacle to the Eve of the Safavid Revolution
2000 Christoph Werner
Otto-Friedrich University, Bamberg An Iranian town in transition: A Social and Economic History of the Elites of Tabriz, 1747-1848
1999 Negar Mottahedeh
University of Minnesota Representing the Unpresentable: Historical Images of Reform, from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran
1998 Shahzad Bashir
Yale University Between Mysticism and Messianism: The Life and Thought of Muhammad Nurbaksh
1997 Nader Sohrabi
Faculty of the Division of Social Sciences, University of Chicago Constitutionalism, Revolution and State: The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 with Comparisons to the Russian Revolution of 1905
1996 David J.Roxburgh
University of Pennsylvania Our Works Point to US: Album Making, Collecting and Art (1427-1565) under The Timurids and Safavids
1995 Franklin D. Lewis
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago Reading, Writing and Recitation: Sana’i and the Origins of the Persian Ghazal
1994 Layla S. Diba
New York University Laquerwork of Safavid Persia and its Relationship to Persian Painting
1992 Jamsheed K.Choksy
Harvard University Muslims and Zoroastrians in Medieval Iran and Western Inner Asia: Cultural Transition and Religious History
1991 Janet Afary
Middle Eastern Studies and History, University of Michigan Grassroots Democracy and Social Democracy in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911
1990 Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Public Administration, American University Orientalism in Reverse: Iranian Intellectuals and the West, 1960-1990
1989 Jeannine Davis-Kimball
Near Eastern Studies, University of California Proportions in Achaemenid Art
1988 Abbas Alizadeh
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago Mobile Pastoralism and the Development of Complex Societies in Highland Iran: The Evidence from Tell-i Bakun A
1987 Almuth Degener
Department of Oriental Studies, University of Hamburg Khotanische Suffixe
1986 Yeganeh Shaygan
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, Avicenna on Time
1985 Anne H. Betteridge
Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago Ziarat: Pilgrimage to the Shrines of Shiraz
1984 Farah Gilanshah
Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota The Iranians of the Twin Cities
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Honorable Mentions awarded to Ph.D. dissertations for high scholarship, originality, clarity, and significant contribution to Iranian Studies: 1999-2021
1999
Sunil Sharma, "Poetics of Court and Prison in the Divan of Mas`ud-e Sa`d-e Salman," The University of Chicago
Maziar Lotfalian, "Technoscientific Identities: Muslims and the Culture of Curiosity," Rice University
2000
Oya Pancaroglu, “‘A World Unto Himself': The Rise of a New Human Image in the Late Seljuk Period (1150-1250," Harvard University
MichaelAllan Rubin, "The Formation of Modern Iran, 1858-1909: Communications, Telegraph and Society," Yale University
2001
Annabel Keeler, "Persian Sufism and Exegesis: Maybudi’s Commentary on the Qur’ân, The Kashf Al-Asrâr," Cambridge University
2002
Colin P. Mitchell, "The Sword and the Pen: Diplomacy in Early Safavid Iran, 1501-1555,” University of Toronto
2003
Roxanne Varzi, “Visionary Terrains of Post-Revolutionary War Iran: Youth Culture, Media and Public Space,” Columbia University
Afshin Marashi, “Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870-1941,” University of California, Los Angeles
2004
Matthew Canepa, “The Two Eyes of the Earth: Competition and Exchange in the Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran,” University of Chicago
Andrew Peacock, “Abu `Ali Bal`ami’s Translation of Al-Tabari’s History,” University of Cambridge
2005
Talinn Grigor, “Cultivat(ing) Modernities: The Society for National Heritage, Political Propaganda, and Public Architecture in Twentieth Century Iran,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Naghmeh Sohrabi, “Signs Taken for Wonder: Nineteenth Century Persian Travel Literature to Europe,” Harvard University
2006
No Honorable Mention Awarded
2007
Ghazzal Dabiri, “The Origins and Development of Persian Epics,” University of California, Los Angeles
Victoria Gardner, “The Written Representations of a Central Asian Sufi Shaykh: Ahmad Ibn Mawlana Jalal al-Din Khwajagi Kasani ‘Makhdum A`zam,’” University of Michigan
2008
Nasim Vahabi-Fatemi, “Les écrits des enfants de la guerre: des pays-bas à l’Iran, en passant par la Bosnie et l’Irlande,” University of Paris X-Nanterre
Thomas Welsford, “Loyalty, Welfare and Selfhood in Early Modern Central Asia: The Tûqây-Tîmûrid Takeover of Greater Mâ Warâ al-Nahr, 1598-1605,” University of Oxford
2009
Roxane Farmanfarmaian, “Passionate Constructions: Democracy and Islam in Anglo-American Relations with Iran, 1979-1989,” University of Cambridge
Reza Pourjavady, “A Shi`i Theologian and Philosopher of Early Safavid Iran,” Free University Berlin
2010
Mohammed Rustom, “Qur’anic Exegesis in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra’s Tafsir Surat al-Fatihah,” University of Toronto
Zahra Pamela Karimi, “Transitions in Domestic Architecture and Home Culture in Twentieth Century Iran,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2011
Clement Therme, “Les relations entre Téhéran et Moscou depuis 1979: perspectives iraniennes,” University of Geneva and l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales
Orkideh Behrouzan, “Prozàk Diaries: Post-Rupture Subjectivities and Psychiatric Futures,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2012
Alireza Mohammadi Doostdar, “Fantasies of Reason: Science, Superstition, and the Supernatural in Iran,” Harvard University
Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult Philosophy of Sa’in al-Din Turka Isfahani (1369-1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran,” Yale University
2013
Justine Landau, "De rythme et de raison: lecture croisée de deux traités de poétique persane du XIIIe siècle," Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3
Manata Hashemi, “Social Mobility among Poor Youth in Iran,” University of California, Berkeley
2014
Michael Shenkar “Anthropomorphic Iconography of Iranian Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Shawhin Roudbari “Transnational Transformation of Architecture Practice: Iranian Architects in the New Geography of Professional Authority, 1945-2012,” University of California, Berkeley
2015
Seyyed Ahmad Hashemi “The Question of Freedom within the Horizon of the Iranian Constitutional Movement, 1906-1921,” University of Oxford
Keenan Baca-Winters “From Rome to Iran: Identity and Xusro II,” University of California, Irvine
2016
Fatemeh Shams-Esmaeili "Official Voices of a Revolution: A Social History of Islamic Republic’s Poetry," Univertsity of Oxford
Jonathan Brack “Mediating Sacred Kingship: Conversion and Sovereignty in Mongol Iran,” University of Michigan
Cameron Lindley Cross “The Poetics of Romantic Love in Vis O Râmin,” University of Chicago
2017
Austin O'Malley “Poetry and Pedagogy: The Homiletic Verse of Farid al-Din `Attar,” University of Chicago
Waleed Ziad “Traversing the Indus and the Oxus: Trans-Regional Islamic Revival in the Age of Political Fragmentation and the ‘Great Game’, 1747-1880” Yale University
2018
Ahoo Najafian “Poetic Nation: Iranian Soul and Historical Continuity” Stanford University
Robert Landau Ames “Looking for the Human: Sufism, Subjectivity, and Modernity in Iran” Harvard University
Shaftolu Gulamadov “The Hagiography of Nāṣir-i Khusraw and the Ismāʿīlīs of Badakhshān” University of Toronto
2019
Narges Nematollahi “The Iranian Epistolary Tradition: Origins and Development (6th Century BCE to 7th Century CE)” Indiana University
Felisa Marie Hervey “Sharp-Edged Verse in 21st Century Afghanistan: an Analysis of Socio-Political Dimensions in Women’s Poetry” University of Arizona
Sheida Dayani “Juggling Revolutionaries: A Theatrical History of Indigenous Theatre and Early Playwriting in Iran" New York University
2020
Zahra Nasiri Moghaddam “Les pionniers de l’enseignement du français à l’École Polytechnique (Dâr ol-Fonun) de Téhéran au XIXe siècl: Jules Richard, Mozayyen od-Dowle et Yusof Richard” Université de Strasbourg
2021
Thomas Blair Benfey "The Scholars of Sasanian Iran and Their Islamic Heirs" Princeton University
Tanvir Akhtar Ahmed "Radical Shadows of God; Islam and Sociopolitical Dissent, 1240-1600" Brown University