Dr. Fariba Parsa was born and raised in Iran and started her activities for gender equality and democracy in Iran since high school. He was expelled from school and left Iran only a few weeks before his arrest due to his political activities. Dr. Parsa lived in Denmark for several years, where he received a master’s degree in political science from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in social science with a specialization in Iranian politics, focusing on political Islam and the debate on democracy and human rights.
Dr. Parsa worked for more than 15 years with Danish national and grassroots organizations in the field of human rights and democracy. She was elected as a board member of a number of organizations in Denmark, such as the Danish National Council for Women, the Danish Council for European Policy, UNA Denmark and the Danish National Council for Human Rights. He has contributed to Danish newspapers and national television about Iran’s politics.
Dr. Parsa came to the United States in 2010 as a visiting postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, Center for Middle Eastern Studies MA. She continued her research on Iranian women’s leadership challenges and opportunities at the University of Maryland. In 2014 and later, she worked as a research assistant at George Mason University, Center for Women and Gender Studies.
Dr. Parsa founded the non-profit Women’s E-Learning in Leadership – (WELL) and worked with young female students at George Mason University from 2014 to 2020. Currently, he is a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. with Iran Program and presenting research articles on women’s rights in Iran as well as working on the WELL organization to empower Iranian women’s grassroots organizations for gender equality and democracy in Iran.