Kayvan Seyedin is a first-generation Iranian-American from San Diego, CA and born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. He graduated summa cum laude with Department Honors in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego. His thesis focused on the recent recirculation and pedagogical mobilization of Iranian-French artist Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical film Persepolis (2007) in the aftermath of Iran's 2022 women-led uprisings. Deploying an anti-Orientalist and anti-Islamophobic framework, his research examines the knowledges codified in Persepolis about Iranian women, men, and post-revolutionary Iran in particular, and Muslim women, men, and collectivities more generally, as well as the discursive effects produced by the film's treatment as an ethnographic work. 

Kayvan's research interests are deeply informed by his Iranian-American background and Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. He is specifically interested in exploring self-representations produced by Iranian women filmmakers in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema in order to understand how women's identities are simultaneously negotiated and resist hegemonic discourses about Muslim women's oppression. Kayvan's broader research interests include the emergence of Shia liberation theology, political Islam, and manifestations of Islamic modernity in post-revolutionary Iran. 

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Usman Khan is a Queer, Muslim, Pakistani-Canadian graduate from York University, Toronto. His undergraduate degree was a Specialized Honours BA in History where he focused on the intersection between the Middle East, religion, and gender and sexuality studies.

Motivated by his own experiences and observations of Queer Muslims and South Asian youth, Usman aspires to become a historical scholar, contributing to and expanding youth access to research in these areas. He combines rigorous research and theoretical background with his personal perspective as both an outsider and insider to the cultures he explores. With a northern Pakistani background and Canadian upbringing, Usman brings a unique skill set in languages such as English, Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi, while further intending to soon include Farsi.

Usman's focus is on the region between Kabul and Delhi, specifically examining how Islam influenced gender and sexual norms during the later Delhi Sultanate and early Mughal Empire from the 14th to the 17th centuries.

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Safi is from Weddington, NC and recently graduated from Davidson College. She spent many memorable hours with the Religious and Arab Studies departments, discussing pre-modern mysticism interacting with modern consciousness. Her undergraduate thesis thus utilized Ibn Arabi’s Futuhat al-Makiyya as a method of identifying the spiritual flattening in Osama bin Laden’s transcripts. 

Safi has studied Arabic with Qasid, Middlebury, and HDS. Further, her travels to Morocco taught the art of not only calligraphy but also daarija and old medina bartering. Returning to Rabat with the Pulitzer Center, she reported on the story of youth’s mystic and social culture in a new lingual age. In the next couple years, Safi hopes to continue research on mystic thought in a modern political context as a FLAS fellow in the dual MA program.

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Margaret Sawyer graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in Spanish and International Affairs and a minor in Arabic. During her time at UNH, she interned for the Department of State, where she co-managed an interactive platform for the US Embassy in Libya’s External Office. In her undergraduate thesis, Margaret explored how the Spanish tourism industry frames the country’s Islamic heritage, focusing particularly on Andalusia. As an MA candidate for the Columbia/Aga Khan dual degree in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures, she seeks to understand how politics and religion shape cultural and heritage preservation in the Middle East.

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Herman Lim Bin Adam Lim is the recipient of the Aga Khan Fellowship for the Columbia/Aga Khan Dual MA Program in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures. He is particularly interested in the multiple expressions of Muslimness across the Indian Ocean, and the connections engendered between its littoral regions throughout time. He focuses primarily on Southeast Asia, stressing its importance as an integral (rather than peripheral) region in the wider conversation on the Muslim World.

Prior to this program, Herman received his MA in Asian Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where he studied the construction of Muslim identity in Malaya and Singapore in the realm of film, literature, and ephemera in the twentieth century, under his advisor Dr. Barbara Watson Andaya. He intends to explore pre-modern and early modern expressions of Muslimness, especially in relation to Sufism and the occult sciences, during his time at Columbia and the Aga Khan University.

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Ellie Harris is from New Palestine, Indiana. Before coming to Columbia, Ellie studied philosophy at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Ellie is particularly interested in Sufism and Islamic philosophy, especially in South Asia.

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