Vita

• 2011 Spr Tom and Patricia Kennedy Residential Fellowship, School of Art and Art History, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida
• 2009 Winner, Middle East Studies Association, Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies
• Book Award for Isfahan and its Palaces: Statecraft, Shi‘ism and the Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2008).
• 2009-10 Fulbright Regional Researcher Scholar Grant, for Egypt and Syria
• 2008-09 Getty Research Institute, Invited Visiting Scholar, Los Angeles 
• 2007 Soudavar Foundation book subvention grant (for Isfahan and its Palaces), Geneva, London and New York
• 2003 Office of the Vice President for Research, book subvention grant (for Slaves of the Shah), University of Michigan
• 2003 Soudavar Foundation book subvention grant (for Slaves of the Shah), Geneva, London and New York
• 2002 Center for the Study of Social Transformations (for Islam/Art/America Initiative), University of Michigan
• 2002-06 Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies grants awarded for programming of visiting artists and scholars, University of Michigan
• 2003-04 Rackham Faculty Summer Grant and Fellowship, University of Michigan
• 1993-94 Morgan Whitney Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• 1992 Samuel H. Kress Travel Grant for Research in Iran
• 1990-91 Morgan Whitney Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• 1989-90 Richard Ettinghausen Fellowship, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
• 1987-89 Hagop Kevorkian Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• 1986-87 Florence Waterbury Scholarship, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU
• 1981-83 Graduate Award, Art History Department, The American University

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. 1994 New York University, Institute of Fine Arts; Doctoral exams in Renaissance (North-South exchanges); Dissertation in Islamic art: “Safavid Palaces at Isfahan; Continuity and Change (1590-1666)”
• M.A. 1985 New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, Renaissance art and architecture
• M.A. 1983 American University, Washington DC, Art Department: Italian Renaissance art and American art
• B.A. 1979 Tehran University, Tehran, Iran, Faculty of Fine Arts: Graphic Design

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Teaching:

• 2001-2008 Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan
• 2006-2008 Unbudgeted appointment, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
• 1997-1999 Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Art, Smith College
• 1988-1997 Lecturer, Department of Fine Arts and Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, New York University
• 1994 Lecturer, Department of Art History, Rutgers University
• 1992 Lecturer for the exhibition “Al-Andalus,” Department of Education, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
• 1990 Lecturer, course on Asian art for docents, Asian Department, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York

Museum Exhibitions:

• 2010 Strolling in Isfahan, Sackler Museum, Harvard University, guest curator
• 2002 Treasures of Islamic Art from UMMA Collections, University of Michigan Museum of Art, with undergraduate students, November 30, 2002-June 1, 2006
• 1998 Islamic Art from the Permanent Collection, Smith College Museum of Art, with undergraduate students, April 14-May 30, 1998
• 1989 Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, co-curated with Marie Lukens Swietochowski, Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 13 – December 31, 1989

Museum Associations & Consultancies:

• 2002-2008 Research Associate, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan
• 2008 Consultant on Persian paintings, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
• 2006 Consultant on preparation of Persian works of art for re-installation of Islamic galleries, Detroit Institute of Art
• 2005 Consultant on re-installation of Islamic galleries, Detroit Institute of Art