iran

Mona is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, based in Oakland and currently writing her dissertation on a the cinematic world of British petroleum companies in Iraq and Iran during the middle of the twentieth century. Her research and graduate studies have been supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Sultan Program in Arab Studies, the Berkeley Center for British Studies, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program. Mona's interest in visual culture extends beyond her academic work, and as a Berkeley graduate student she has organized a number of film and other events on campus in collaboration with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, the Center for Race and Gender, and the International House Programming Office with support from the Townsend Center for the Humanities. She currently volunteers for the Arab Film Festival as a program coordinator for the Festival in Schools program and recently established the Middle East Film and Arts Association, a student organization that promotes campus engagement with the work of filmmakers and artists related to the Middle East.