Reporting on Iran: Science under revolt and repression

Encieh Erfani

Encieh Erfani was an Assistant Professor of Physics at the IASBS, Iran. She resigned in Sep. 2022 in protest against the Iranian government. She obtained her PhD from Bonn University, Germany (2012). Her research area is theoretical physics with a concentration on cosmology. She is an executive committee member of the Global Young Academy (2021-2023), a TWAS Young Affiliate member, a fellow of the International Science Council and Advisory Committee on Communication, Education, and Outreach of the InterAcademy Partnership (2022-2025). She was on the board of directors of the Astronomy Society of Iran and the founder of its female branch, a Junior Associate of the ICTP, Italy, and co-chair of the "Preservation of Science" task team of Science in Exile. She was a visiting researcher at UNAM, Mexico and ICTP-SAIFR, Brazil under the TWAS fellowship, and a postdoctoral fellow at the IPM, Iran. She is a co-founder of the International Community of Iranian Academics (ICOIA), Nov. 2022. 

Hadi Ghaemi

Co-founder and executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). Born in Iran, he received a Ph.D. in physics from Boston University and was a professor of physics at City University of New York, doing research in nanophysics. Afterwards, he joined Human Rights Watch. He was also a member of the first UN-commissioned human rights fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, and worked with NGOs focusing on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Michele Catanzaro

Michele Catanzaro is an Italian journalist based in Barcelona, Spain. He has a Ph.D in Physics from the Technical University of Catalonia. He has worked as a freelance for several outlets, including Nature and the Spanish newspaper El Periódico. He lectures on science journalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He covers academic freedom throughout the world, with a special focus on Iran, where he has followed several cases of jailed scholars.

Angela Saini

Angela Saini is science journalist and author based in New York, and an ABSW board member. She presents radio and television programmes, and her writing has appeared across the world, including in Financial Times, Wired, New Scientist, and National Geographic. Angela's latest book, The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule, was published this year by 4th Estate and Beacon Press, and includes a chapter on the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the subsequent impact on women’s rights.