Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute is delighted to share news about some of its Fellows and their recent accomplishments.
Vahideh Rasekhi obtained her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Stony Brook University in August 2018. Her primary area of interest is syntax (ellipsis, long-distance dependencies, and passive/causative structures) and she wrote her dissertation on “Ellipsis and Information Structure: Evidence from Persian,” for which she was awarded a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies in academic year 2017-18. Dr. Rasekhi will continue her research on the syntax of Iranian languages at UCLA Department of Linguistics, where she has been selected as the inaugural Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Postdoctoral Fellow in Iranian Linguistics. This postdoctoral fellowship carries a term of two years, with the possibility for a one-year extension.
Soodabeh Malekzadeh successfully completed her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Irvine, in May 2018. Her research interests include ancient Persian languages, ancient Iranian religion and tradition as well as Persian mythology and literature. She was awarded our Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies for the completion of her doctoral dissertation, entitled “The Sasanian Empire in the Fifth Century: The Case of Yazdegerd I and Bahram V,” in academic year 2017-18.
Dr. Matthew Miller has been appointed Assistant Professor of Persian and the Associate Director of the Roshan Initiative in Persian Digital Humanities at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on medieval Sufi literature, the history of sexuality and the body, and digital humanities. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (Persian and Arabic) from Washington University in St. Louis, for which he had received a Roshan Institute Fellowship for Excellence in Persian Studies in academic year 2012-13.
Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute would like to commend all Fellows for their contributions to Persian Studies scholarship and wishes them continued success.