Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz

Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz is Personal Chair in Cinema and Iran, and Head of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

She has published in the fields of visual cultures, constructions of masculinity, and the engagement of religion and film, including Shi‘i Islam in Iranian Cinema: Religion and Spirituality in Film, and Visualizing Iran: From Antiquity to the Present. She is an active member of the University of Edinburgh community and has served on the Steering Group of GenderEd, and the Senate. Professor Pak-Shiraz is an appointed member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Board member of the Academic Council of the Iran Heritage Foundation, and National Committee Member of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK).

She has been external examiner to undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS).

Professor Pak-Shiraz is on the editorial and advisory boards for Brill and Iranian Studies and has been a peer reviewer for Harvard University Press and Edinburgh University Press, among others.

She has curated five annual film festivals in Edinburgh and been a jury member and presenter at a number of international film festivals in the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iran. After receiving a BA in Tehran, she completed the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities at IIS, followed by an MA in the Anthropology of Media and PhD in Film and Media.