Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi has been appointed as inaugural Director of the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies for a five-year-and-three-month term effective April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2026.
Professor Tavakoli-Targhi holds a BA in political science and an MA in history from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in history from the University of Chicago. In 2004, he was appointed at the rank of Professor at the University of Toronto in the Departments of Historical Studies, History, and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations.
Professor Tavakoli-Targhi is the recipient of two Outstanding Teacher awards from Illinois State University (1996 and 2001) and held visiting fellowships at St. Antony's College, Oxford University (1998), the Center for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, 1992–93); and Harvard University (1991–92).
Professor Tavakoli-Targhi was the founding Chair of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Toronto, Mississauga (2004-07), and has served as President of the International Society for Iranian Studies (2008-10). In addition to serving as Editor-in-Chief of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2001-2012), a Duke University Press journal, he was the Editor of Iran Nameh (2011-2015). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Iran Namag, a bilingual quarterly of Iranian Studies, and is the coeditor of the Iranian Studies book series published by Routledge.