I teach at the School of International Service at American University in Washington D.C.. My teaching and research focus on human rights, Middle East politics and the politics of human rights in and vis-à-vis the Middle East. In particular, I have focused on the dynamics of human rights contests, social movements, and/or political change in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia and Bahrain at various points over the last 25 years.

My work is interdisciplinary, drawing from and in conversation with scholarship from human rights studies, international relations, international law, Middle East area studies, and law & society. It both engages critically with and is firmly rooted in critical scholarship across these disciplines and subdisciplines.