Iranian Fundraiser Happy Hour
Date: Thursday March 3, 2005
Time: 6:00PM - 11:00PM
Location: CLOUD (formerly Savino's Cafe), On Dupont Circle, Washington, DC 20036
Price: $7 Donation at the door
Details: 100% of all proceeds will benefit Mahak Organization
benefiting children with cancer
There will be a raffle for great prizes including
tickets to Mohammad Reza Shajarian's concert at the Kennedy Center on March 5th, and
good seats
for an upcoming NBA game at MCI center on March 19th.
There will be also two great guest speakers. One will
be Afshin Molavi, the author of Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran, which
was named by Lonely Planet as one of two "must-reads" for travelers to
Iran, nominated for the Thomas Cook literary travel book of the year award.
Molavi has covered Iran for the Washington Post and Reuters and his articles
have appeared, among other places, in the Financial Times, the New Republic, and
Foreign Policy. The other, Dr. Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, is a Professor and Director
of the Persian Studies Center at The University of Maryland.
100% of all proceeds will benefit Mahak Organization
benefiting children with cancer.
For more information contact Ali Zinat at
703-637-1305 or Melody Djam at melody.jam@gmail.com
Thank you for your support.
Amir
Shooshtari Graduated with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Fall 2004.
Amir Shooshtari successfully defended his Ph.D.
dissertation and completed his degree requirements in Mechanical Engineering in
Nov. 2004. His Ph.D. dissertation is entitled �Experimental and Computational
Analysis of An Electrohydrodynamic Mesopump for Spot Cooling Applications�
advised by
Dr. Michael Ohadi. An abstract of Amir�s thesis can be found
here (PDF file).
Amir will continue his work as a research scientist in
the Smart and Small Thermal Systems Laboratory at the University of
Maryland.
The University of Maryland, Center for Persian Studies, Courses Offered
Spring 2005
The following courses are offered in Center for Persian Studies, for the coming
spring semester:
PERS 101 Elementary Persian I (4 Credits): This course is not open
to students with previous exposure to the language. Introduction to
pronunciation, the alphabet, and basic structures of the language with emphasis
on oral and aural skills.
PERS 102 Elementary Persian II (4 Credits): Prerequisite:
PERS 101 or permission of department. Continuation of work in PERS 101
with emphasis on oral and aural skills and graded reading.
PERS 353 Iranian Life in Literature and Film (3 Credits):
No Prerequisites. Major themes of Iranian life treated in modern
narrative and cinema. Topics include Iranian identity, religious
traditions, modern Iranian life, and the emergence of Iranian expatriate
communities.
PERS 452 Modern Persian Literature: A Survey (3 Credits):
Prerequisite: PERS 301 or permission of department. Development of
poetry and prose after the Persian-speaking world absorbed the impact of Western
cultures. Periods and genres. Works of such authors as Jamalzadeh,
Hedayat, Dehkhoda, Nima, Al-e Ahmad, Sepehri, and Farrokhzad.
Azar
Nafisi Visits University of Maryland at College Park
Jimenez-Porter Series at The Writers' House presents a reading by Azar
Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, Thursday October 14,
2004, 7:00 pm in Dekelboum Concert Hall, in
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, at University of Maryland at College
Park. This event is free and open to the public, and no tickets are
required.
An introduction will be given by Dr. Karimi-Hakkak, director of the new center
for Persian Studies at UMCP.
Azar Nafisi is a visiting professor and the director of the
SAIS Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins
University. A professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, Dr. Nafisi
has also taught at the University of Tehran, and the Free Islamic University.
Dr. Nafisi is the author of Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir
Nabokov's Novels. Her new book Reading Lolita in Tehran was published
by Random House in April 2003.
For more information about this program you can contact Laura Lauth:
301-405-0671 or April Naoko Heck: 301-405-0675.
IGSF's Election:
IGSF held elections for its board members for its
second term during September 13-15, 2004. New elected officers for the new
term are Amirali Sharifi (President), Reza Salem (Treasurer), Kamiar
Kordari (Officer), Behrang Hejazi (Officer), Shabnam Shafiee (Officer),
and Nima Mesgarani (Officer).
Congratulations to new board members, and thanks to the previous
board's officers (Afshin Sepehri, Amirali Sharifi, Mehdi Kalantari, Sasan
Bakhtiari, Nasim Vakili, and Masoud Hamedi) for all their hard work.
The Center for Persian Studies Offers a Course in Fall 2004
Ali
Zandifar successfully completed his PhD requirements in department
of electrical and computer engineering. His thesis title is "
Computer Vision for Scene Text Analysis". He worked with his advisors
Dr. Ramani Duraiswami, Prof. Larry Davis and Prof. Rama Chellappa .
The motivation of his dissertation is to develop a 'Seeing-Eye' video-based
interface for the visually impaired to access environmental text information.
His work is related to those daily activities of the low-vision people involved
with interpreting 'environmental text' or
'scene text' e.g., reading a newspaper, can labels and street signs.
Ali will join
Epson R&D
lab in September 2004.
Shahrooz Shahparnia
and Baharak Mohajeriravani
Authors of an Article on Electromagnetic Band Gap Material in Interface Technology.
Shahrooz Shahparnia and
Baharak Mohajeriravani graduate students at department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Maryland with
their professor band-gap material in Interference Technology,
a publicaiton for the engineering community involved in eliminating or
controlling electromagnetic interference (EMI) and achieving electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC). The University of Maryland's Office of Technology Commercialization is pursuing a patent
for this technology.
Reza Salem One of the Finalists of
Maryland's 17th annual Invention of the Year
Awards
Reza Salem was one of the
finalists of Maryland's 17th annual Invention of the Year Awards for
his work in "Technique for Performing Polarization-Independent Optical
Cross-Correlations." He and his professor developed a
polarization-independent form of optical cross-correlation--two-photon
absorption (TPA) which is simple, inexpensive, sensitive and ultra fast. The
technology has broad applications in optical signal processing. Near-term
applications include optical clock recovery, high-speed optical sampling and
optical mixing.
Mehdi Kalantari Khandani and Mehdi Alasti, the winners of University of
Maryland�s Buisness Plan Competition
Mehdi Kalantari Khandani, a PhD
candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at
Maryland, is in the winner team of the 2004 Business Plan Competition
which was held on campus. The MacroPhage
Networks team won the graduate student category. This team
consists of Mehdi Kalantari,
an ECE Ph.D. candidate, Mehdi Alasti,
a 2001 ECE Ph.D., and Professor Mark Shayman, who is
CTO and interim CEO. Their idea for Macrophage Networks won for their
methods and algorithms for internet security/protection from Distributed
Denial of Service Attacks. You can see finalists presentations and award
ceremony here.
For more information on this competition, which is held
annually among undergraduate and graduate students as well as university
alumni, please click here.
�Establishment of Persian
Studies Center
under Dr. Karimi-Hakkak
Shirin Ebadi�s event on May 12 began by exciting and
surprising news about opening of a center for Persian Studies at University of
Maryland at College Park, which will start operating beginning fall 2004.� This center will be leaded by Dr. Karimi-Hakkak who is currently
affiliated with Washington
University.
For more information about this center, majors offered, and
its targeted audience, please click here.� This center will be part of
school
of �Languages,
Literatures and Cultures.� More updates
will be available via this school�s site as
the center for Persian Studies begins its work in Fall 2004.
Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, visited
campus on May 12, 2004. She gave a lecture on �Islam, Democracy, and Human
Rights�, at Comcast Center in University of Maryland at College Park, where
over 5000 people gathered to listen to her talk.� A report of her visit on campus can be seen here.� Her full speech in English can be found here.
She was also awarded honorary Doctorate degree in Public
Service by president Mote. �
The day after her speech, on May 13, Shirin Ebadi came to an
informal discussion session with Iranian students on campus in
Prince
George room at university's Stamp Union from 10-11 am in
response to invitations from IGSF and ISF.�
Students got a chance to ask her questions about her speech and ideas,
as well as having the opportunity to take pictures.� She answered students questions about her efforts and speech as
time permitted.
