BANAFSHEH KEYNOUSH, PH.D.

Dr. Banafsheh Keynoush is an international geopolitical consultant, an independent scholar of international politics and Middle East studies, and an author. Her consulting work includes high-stakes advisory and analytical work for the public sector, international organizations, national and international policy centers, and private companies. She is also a consultant on mediation and dialog initiatives.

A visiting fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Keynoush is also non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, a fellow at the Sectarianism and De-Sectarianism Project, a member on the Steering Committee of the Vittorio Dan Segre Foundation, and a member of the Board of Advisers of Cambrian Futures. She was recently a fellow at the International Institute for Iranian Studies in Saudi Arabia, a visiting scholar at Princeton University, and before then, a visiting fellow at the Riyadh-based King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. Previously for nearly a decade, she taught courses at Tufts University, the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, St. Mary’s College, and Islamic Azad University in Iran.

The author of several books, her latest is The World Powers and Iran: Before, During and After the Nuclear Deal (Palgrave, September 2022). Her forthcoming co-authored book is entitled The Abraham Accords: National Security, Regional Order and Popular Representation (Lexington Press, imprint of Rowman and Littlefield, December 2024). Keynoush is also the editor of Iran’s Interregional Dynamics in the Near East (Peter Lang, 2021), and the author of the academic best seller Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes? (Palgrave, 2016; translated into Arabic and Persian). Her latest report, the Archival History of Iran’s Diplomatic Relations with Saudi Arabia From 1913 to 1979 (September 2023), is the first publication to collect, translate, contextualize, and analyze Persian-language archives documenting that country’s ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The report explores the history and legacy of nationalism and colonialism, border dynamics, and the interplay between religious memory and ideology, statehood, society and politics.

Her other publications include a co-authored chapter in Saudi Arabia and Iran: The Struggle to Shape the Middle East (Manchester University Press, 2022), journal articles in Survival and Middle East Policy, analytical reports for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and media reports. She is the author of the book length report Revolutionary Iran’s Africa Policy (KFCRIS, 2021), and other reports including Red Sea Peace Initiatives: Saudi Arabia’s Role in the Ethiopia-Eritrea Rapprochement (KFCRIS, 2020). In addition, she is the translator and editor of Refugee Rights in Iran written by Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi (Saqi, 2008), and the editor of five volumes of Persian poetry entitled the Five Treasures of Ferdowsi (Tehran: Iranian Calligraphy Society, 1999).

Prior to obtaining a Ph.D., Keynoush served as a North Africa development officer at the World Bank, an Afghanistan program officer at The Asia Foundation, a refugee advocate at the Swiss Academy for Development, and an NGO officer at the Initiative for Social Action and Renewal in Eurasia. An accredited senior free-lance translator, and consecutive and simultaneous interpreter at the European Commission, she offered language services to hundreds of UN and international conferences, major and dual track peace talks, world leaders and heads of states in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, two UN Secretary Generals, five Nobel Laureates, and interpreted press conferences and/or UN speeches for Afghanistan’s, Iran’s and Tajikistan’s presidents. She was Nobel Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi’s chief interpreter from 2003 to 2010 as well as her managing agent for part of this period, and before then, an interpreter at the U.S.-Iran Claims Tribunal in The Hague from 1997 to 2003. She also previously volunteered to work for the United Nations and the UNHCR, serve as the Vice-Chair of the member-led Middle East Forum at the Commonwealth Club of California, and teach English to girls in Afghanistan.

A Prominent Fletcher Woman, Keynoush obtained a master’s degree and Ph.D. from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and completed coursework at The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She raises a Jewish-Muslim household and grew up learning about Christianity while attending Saint Mary Abbots Church of England Primary School in London. A U.S. citizen who has worked in almost 40 countries, she spent half her life in the Middle East and in Europe.