Hooshang Amirahmadi (; born May 24, 1947) is an

Iranian American Iranian-Americans, also known as Persian-Americans, are Americans, United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian peoples, Iranian ancestry, or who hold Iranian Multiple citizenship, citizenship. Most Iranian-Americans arrived in the U ...

academic and political analyst of

Talysh Talysh may refer to: *Talysh people, an ethnic group of Iran and Azerbaijan **Talysh language, the West Iranian language of these people ** Talysh, a historical region on the southwestern coast of the Caspian Sea, inhabited by the Talysh people *T ...

origin. Amirahmadi is a professor of the

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy of Rutgers University (The Bloustein School) serves as a center for the theory and practice of urban planning, public policy and public health/health administration scholarship. The sc ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

and former director of its Center for Middle East Studies. He is also a Senior Associate Member at

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. He is the founder and president of the

American Iranian Council The American Iranian Council (AIC) was formed in 1990 as a US-based bi-partisan think tank focused upon promoting better relations between the United States and Iran. Former United States Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was the original honorary ...

. He has stepped forward as a candidate for

Iranian presidential election The President of Iran is the highest official elected by direct, popular vote, although the President carries out the decrees, and answers to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state.(see Article 110 of the constitut ...

s in 2005, 2013 and 2017.

Early life

Hooshang Amirahmadi was born in 1947 in the Talysh region to a landlord family. He is an ethnic

. He received his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree in planning and international development from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

Career

Amirahmadi is the founder and president of

and is a professor of the

. He has served as director of Rutgers University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, as chair and graduate director of his department at the Bloustein School, and as the University Coordinator of the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program. Amirahmadi is also a founder of the

Center for Iranian Research and Analysis Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...

and served as its director for many years. Amirahmadi is also the president of Caspian Associates, Inc., an international strategic consulting firm headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. He is also a Senior Associate Member at

. Amirahmadi is a recognized expert on Iranian affairs, and has been called on to comment on this topic in national media.

Publications

Amirahmadi has published extensively on the topic of Middle-Eastern relations. He is the author of ''Revolution and Economic Transition: The Iranian Experience'', an analysis of post-

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

Iran, and the three other books in Persian on civil society, industrial policy, and geopolitics of energy. He is also editor of ten books on Iran and the Greater Middle East, and 16 conference proceedings on US-Iran relations.

Presidential candidacy

He registered as a candidate for president in the Ninth Presidential Election in Iran in June 2005. Amirahmadi was the presidential candidate of a reformist platform for the 2013 Iranian presidential elections. Amirahmadi supported normalizing Iranian relations with the US, and using the opportunity for economic development. He supports gender equality and female career advancement. If elected, Amirahmadi's administration would have supported creating a coalition government in Syria. On 21 May 2013, Iran's

Guardian Council The Guardian Council (also called Council of Guardians or Constitutional Council, ) is an appointed and constitutionally mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The constitution ...

rejected him and many others from the list of approved candidates. He announced his candidacy for the presidency for the third time in the 2017 election. His third bid was also rejected and he was disqualified.

Bibliography

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References

External links

Campaign Site

Biography
at the Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School
Caspian Associates
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amirahmadi, Houshang University of Tabriz alumni 1947 births Living people Iranian people of Talysh descent Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning alumni Iranian expatriate academics in the United States Rutgers University faculty Iranian emigrants to the United States