People

Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon
Director
Dr. Pilon is a professor of Politics and Culture at the Institute of World Politics. She also teaches at the National Defense University and the Air Force Culture and Language Center. Her books include: Cultural Intelligence for Winning the Peace (edited), Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice; The Bloody Flag: Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe — Spotlight on Romania; Notes from the Other Side of Night; and Every Vote Counts: The Role of Elections in Building Democracy, co-edited with Richard Soudriette. She has also contributed chapters to Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda, and Political Warfare and The Public Diplomacy Reader, edited by IWP Professor J. Michael Waller, and has written over two hundred articles and reviews. She was born in Romania, received all her degrees from the University of Chicago, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Amir A. Fakhravar
Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer
Mr. Fakhravar is an Iranian writer, founder of the Iranian Freedom Movement, serves as the Chair of the Confederation of Iranian Students, and is President of Iranian Freedom Institute, a think thank based in Washington DC. For his role in leading Iran’s pro-democracy student movement, Fakhravar spent a total of five years and three months in Iranian prisons, including Evin Prison, sadistically run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, suffering countless beatings and tortures. He has testified before the United States Senate, as well as the British and Italian Parliaments regarding Iran’s internal unrest.

Research Assistants
Travis Tipton
Margaret Conroy
Ella Peterson
Robinson Myles O’Brien-Bours
Katarina Pancirov 

Website Directors
Katie Bridges, “Culture and Security” site
Mallorie Marino, “Strategic Communication” site

Former Research Assistants
Gabriella Gervasio
Mallorie Marino
Thomas Moullin