Soli Shahvar
Soli Shahvar is director of the Ezri Center for Iran & the Persian Gulf and Professor of Iranian Studies at the Dept. of Middle Eastern Studies, both at the University of Haifa. He holds an MA (cum laude) from Tel Aviv University and a PhD from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Dr. Shahvar has taught at the Hebrew, Ben Gurion and Tel Aviv Universities, both in Hebrew and English.
Dr Shahvar has initiated a number of academic and civil-oriented projects: an academic cooperation program between the University of Haifa and the Baha’i World Center (BWC)(2000); founder of the Ezri Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa (2007); and founder of the Tehran-Haifa-Tel Aviv (TeHTel) site in Persian, aimed at creating a Track III diplomacy (or people-to-people dialogue) with the Iranian people (2012). He also initiated a number of academic agreements between Haifa University and the Azerbaijan University of Languages (2014), the University of Warsaw (2014), and the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (UADA).
Dr Shahvar is member of a number of international academic associations and societies, and a referee for a range of local and international academic bodies, periodicals and publishers. He is also a consultant and analyst to various bodies in and out of Israel, and a commentator on Iranian, Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs for Israeli and the international media in Hebrew, English and Persian, and also published in those languages. The range of his research topics are wide, with his three recent books being the following: The Forgotten Schools: The Baha’is and Modern Education in Iran, 1899-1934 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2009 in English; and Sweden: Baran, 2013, in Persian); The Baha’is of Iran, Transcaspia and the Caucasus, 2 vols. (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011); and The Persian Gulf: New Trends in Interdisciplinary Research (Tel Aviv: Ktav – Acedemic Series, 2014; in Hebrew). He has authored many articles and contributed a number of entries to the Encyclopedia Iranica.