Biography
Niyosha Keyzad is the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies Postdoctoral Fellow. She holds a PhD in English and Diaspora and Transnational Studies from the University of Toronto and an MA in English from McGill University. Her dissertation, Diasporic Pilgrimage: Iranian Women’s Return Narratives, 1999–2020, examined post-Revolution return writing through the lens of pilgrimage, arguing that these narratives redefine diasporic return as a profoundly significant and transformative journey. Niyosha has previously served as the Founding President of the Race and Ethnicity Caucus of the University of Toronto’s Graduate Students’ Union and Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee at Massey College, where she was a Fellow. She co-founded the Scarborough Studies Collective, an interdisciplinary group of local scholars, artists, and community organizers, and was recognized for her work with a Graduate Fellowship Award from the UofT School of Cities. Her research interests include life writing, Iranian women’s literature, diaspora and transnationalism, narrative theory, and urban studies.