She is a professor and the Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
[1] In 1991, she received her PhD in History and Near East studies from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor.
Her research fields includes politics of contemporary Iran and gender, sexuality in modern Middle East, constitutionalism, civil liberties, the public sphere in the Middle East, cinema and popular culture of the Middle East, global feminism, feminist theory, modern Transcaucasia & Central Asia: art and folklore.
Her articles have appeared in The Nation, the Guardian, and numerous scholarly journals and edited collections.
[8] She has served as president of the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS-MESA), the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS-MESA), and the Coordinating Council for Women in History of the American Historical Association (CCWH-AHA).