Niaz Kasravi serves as the Director of Community Relations for PAAIA. She received her Ph. D. in Criminology, Law & Society from the University of California, Irvine. In her academic career, she focused on sociology of law and issues of law and inequality. Through a National Science Foundation grant, she traveled to Iran to work with Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient of 2003, on women's role in the reform movement.
Dr. Kasravi has worked as the Lead Researcher and Associate for the Domestic Human Rights Program of Amnesty International USA, helping build this new program for the organization. At Amnesty, she focused on racial profiling, prison conditions, juveniles in the criminal justice system, civil rights and the "war on terror", as well as other domestic human rights issue.
Additionally, Dr. Kasravi has served as Policy Associate for Stop Prisoner Rape, a national human rights organization working to end sexual violence behind bars. She also served as a consultant for several California-based foundations, including the Rosenberg Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence, and the Women's Foundation of California. Prior to joining PAAIA, Dr. Kasravi served as the Senior Program Officer for a prominent non-profit human rights organization in Washington, D.C. focusing on issues of human rights in the Middle East.
