Welcoming Dr. Tomoyo Chisaka as Spring 2023 Zahedi Fellow

Tomoyo Chisaka joins the Iranian Studies Program as the second Zahedi Family Fellow in spring of 2023. Dr. Chisaka is a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo, Japan. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, during the 2022-2023 academic year. Her dissertation examined the parliamentary election management in post-revolutionary Iran. Focusing on the legal functions of the Ministry of Interior and the Guardian Council, the dissertation considered when and how Iran’s Supreme Leader delegates autonomy to the executive headed by the President as related to the management of parliamentary elections.

The Zahedi Family Fellowship is a 12-week residential fellowship with the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and the Hoover Library and Archives at Stanford focused on the Ardeshir Zahedi Archives. As a Zahedi fellow, Dr. Chisaka will conduct research on Iranian foreign relations with the US after the 1953 coup by utilizing the Zahedi papers, US National Security Archive, and other resources at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives. She is interested in the US diplomatic approach toward Iran’s domestic politics through the process of forming an authoritarian parliamentary system under the Shah as well as its causes and consequences. 

Dr. Chisaka will give a public lecture on her research at the end of her residency (details to come in spring quarter).