About Us

Kelly Golnoush Niknejad

Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Tehran Bureau

Born in Iran, Golnoush moved to the United States when she was 17. She holds a B.A. in political science and writing and a law degree with an international and European focus. Following her initial news work in Southern California and Massachusetts, Golnoush moved to New York City and earned two master's degrees in journalism from Columbia University, focusing first on print and then politics and government.

Her work includes reporting for PBS/FRONTLINE, the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Time, Foreign Policy, and California Lawyer. She has served as a moderator and panelist on discussions about journalism, new media, and Iran at MIT, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Columbia University, Boston University, Paley Center/Carnegie, and the Poynter Institute, among others. She is the inaugural recipient of the Innovator Award from Columbia Journalism School for "inspiring, creating, developing, or implementing new ideas that further the cause of journalism." The Daily Beast named her one of "17 people who are changing the world" through their editing, blogging, reporting, videos, and Twitter feeds. She launched Tehran Bureau in November 2008. Tehran Bureau is now in partnership with PBS/FRONTLINE. Their first editorial partnership on a documentary, "A Death in Tehran," won an Emmy for continuing coverage of a news story.

Muhammad Sahimi

Dr. Muhammad Sahimi writes political commentary for Tehran Bureau. He is a professor of chemical engineering and materials science, and the NIOC Chair in Petroleum Engineering, which was established by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1973 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In addition to his scientific research, which has resulted in four books and nearly 300 published papers, he has been writing about Iran's nuclear program and its internal developments for many years.

His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Harvard International Review, and The Progressive, among other publications.

Muhammad has been a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists since 1986 and a contributor to its Partners for Earth program.

Dan Geist

Dan is a New York-based arts critic and editor. He has written for Knight Ridder, Inter Press Service, and the Wall Street Journal. He is an alumnus of Amherst College.

Nushin Arbabzadah

A former BBC journalist and regular contributor to the Guardian, Nushin completed graduate school in Middle Eastern studies at Cambridge University in 2002. She worked extensively for the British Council in London as an editor, project manager, and adviser on Islamic culture and identity before becoming a research scholar at UCLA's Center for the Study of Women. She has edited two books, No Ordinary Life: Being Young in the Worlds of Islam (2004) and From Outside In, Refugees in British Society (2007); coedited Sadegh Hedayat's short story collection Three Drops of Blood (2009); and translated Houshang Assadie's Letters to My Torturer from Farsi to English. Her coedited volume Afghanistan in Ink, Literature Between Diaspora and Nation will be published by Columbia University Press in 2012. Fluent in English, German, Spanish, and Persian (Dari and Farsi), she can also read French, Tajik, and Pashto. She will be covering Afghanistan as a columnist for Tehran Bureau.

Amir Ebrahimnia

Amir is CEO of Derooted Creative Agency, which designed the first Tehran Bureau website. Derooted played a major role in the success of Tehran Bureau, in part through advanced use of social networking sites to promote its coverage and creating a platform to quickly and efficiently disseminate news, video, and photos of the demonstrations that erupted after the 2009 presidential election in Iran.

Azmat Khan

Azmat is on the Web/Editorial team at PBS/FRONTLINE and writes about Iran-Pakistan issues for Tehran Bureau. In 2008-9, she worked as a TV reporter in Pakistan covering development aid, the displaced persons crisis, and gender issues. Azmat is a graduate of Oxford University and the University of Michigan, and has studied in Cairo. She has also worked in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., Facebook, and Equality Now. She is based in Boston.

Thor Neureiter

Thor is an award-winning producer and editor of contemporary and historical documentaries. He has worked on programming for FRONTLINE on PBS, including "Showdown with Iran," Parts One and Two of "News War: Secrets, Sources & Spin," "The Last Abortion Clinic," and "The O.J. Verdict." He has also worked extensively for HBO and Ken Burns/Florentine Films. He divides his time between New York City and London.

He will be producing video programs and short documentaries for Tehran Bureau.