Touraj Daryaee, director of UCI’s Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture and Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies & Culture, has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
“It is a great honor to be part of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, which is due to the kindness of friends and colleagues in that continent,” Daryaee said. “The election means that we at UCI can collaborate even more with colleagues in the Academy and its scholars in Europe. Knowledge has no continental boundaries.”
The EASA is an international, non-governmental, non-profit organization committed to promoting scientific and societal progress through interdisciplinary collaboration. Members include over 2,000 leading scientists and artists dedicated to innovative research and the exchange of knowledge. Among them are 34 Nobel Prize winners.
"I'm deeply proud of Professor Daryaee's election by the European Academy,” said Tyrus Miller, dean of the School of Humanities. “His scholarship has made him a leader in Persian studies internationally; as director of the Jordan Center for Persian Studies he shares that international esteem with UCI and the School of Humanities."
EASA scholars are divided into eight classes: Humanities; Medicine; Arts; Natural Sciences; Social Sciences, Law and Economics; Technical and Environmental Sciences; World Religions; and Corporate and Public Governance.
As part of the Humanities class, Daryaee will contribute his research and expertise on Iranian history, civilization, languages and literature; Zoroastrianism; numismatics; and world history. He has authored over ten highly acclaimed books on the subjects. His book Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (I. B. Tauris, 2009) won the BRISMES Award with the judges calling it “a masterpiece" and remarking that it "offers a timely counterpart to Eurocentricity which has distorted the study of antiquity.” He also edited The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History (Oxford University Press, 2012), which was chosen as one of the top 25 academic books of the year by Choice magazine and described as “the best single volume on the history of the Iranian world.”
He is the editor of the electronic journals DABIR: Digital Archives of Brief Notes and Iran Review and Sasanika: Late Antique Near East Project. His articles have appeared both in English and Persian in Iranian Studies, Iran, Iranistik, Studia Iranica, Res Orientalis, Historia, Electrum, Indo-Iranian Journal, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Iranshenasi, Iran Nameh, Name-ye Baharestan, and Name-ye Iran-e Bastan.
Daryaee joined UCI in 2007 as one of three Maseeh endowed chair positions, and has since been fundamental in creating scholarship, research and partnerships that bridge Iranian studies with the rest of the university and the Orange County community.