CAIS staff have all been working hard over the winter break. Some managed to escape the cold and the rest worked away in the quiet that is winter at ANU.

Winter news:

CAIS has two new academic staff commencing work in S2 2018. We welcome them both - Dr Jessie Moritz has been appointed as a Lecturer and will be teaching courses in political economy and development of the Middle East. Stephanie Wright has been appointed as an Associate Lecturer and will be co-teaching 'Politics in the Middle East' in S2 and working on her research on the underworlds of port cities in the late nineteenth-century Eastern Mediterranean.

Several CAIS scholars attained significant achievements over the break: Dr Raihan Ismail has been awarded the prestigious Max Crawford Medal from the Australian Academy of Humanities, for her outstanding scholarly achievement.

Dr Zahra Taheri has recently returned from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice.Dr Taheri received a Grant for staff mobility for teaching and training in the framework of the 'Erasmus + International Credit Mobility' founded by the European Commission (EACEA), for the summer of 2018. The training included six research discussion meetings with scholars in Ca' Foscari's Persian Studies Program: Professor Riccardo Zipoli, Professor Daniela Meneghini, and Professor Stefan Pello. As well as meetings with undergraduate and postgraduate students, Dr Taheri was teaching weekly seminars on 'Gender and Culture in Iran during the last four decades'.