Professor, Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, School of History, University of St Andrews

Ali Ansari is Professor of Iranian History & Founding Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews and a Senior Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 2018 he was elected Hon Vice President of the British Institute for Persian Studies, and re-elected President of BIPS in 2023.

In 2020 he was awarded a two-year Knowledge Exchange Fellowship at the FCDO. His research interests include the development of the State in Iran in the modern era, with a particular focus on nationalism, mythology and the use (and abuse) of history.

He is currently investigating the historiography of modern Iran, both the way in which historians have interpreted the development of Iranian state and society as well as the way in which Iranian historians have sought to construct a distinctly Iranian identity both in terms of their own history but also in relation to regional and international powers, most obviously the West. He also interested in the politics and history of the Islamic Republic and the broader relations of Britain and the United States with Iran.

Ali Ansari is Director of the Westphalia for the Middle East project at the Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge. Professor Ansari is a regular contributor to the international media on political developments in Iran, and has widely published on the history of Iran.