Janet Afary

Janet Afary is an author, feminist activist and researcher of history, religious studies and women studies. She is a professor and the Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Career.
She received her M.A. degree from University of Tehran. In 1991, she received her PhD in History and Near East studies from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. She was the recipient of the Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award from the University of Michigan. 
Her research field includes politics of contemporary Iran and gender and sexuality in modern Middle East. She is known for her writings and research on the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.
Afary is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. She previously taught at in the History Department and Women's Studies at Purdue University. In the 1980s, she served as the coordinator for the Iranian Jewish Association of California.
Afary was awarded the Keddie/Balzan Fellowship by the International Balzan Prize Foundation for the 2008–2009 academic year to work at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). 
Afary is married to Kevin B. Anderson, a fellow professor at UCSB. 