Banafsheh Keynoush

Position
Visiting Fellow
Bio/Description

Bio

Field: International Affairs, Middle Eastern Studies
Interests: Interregional dynamics, Persian poetry
In Residence: Mar. 27 - Apr. 21, 2017; Sept. 1 - Dec. 1, 2018

Dr. Banafsheh Keynoush is Affiliate Faculty at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with World Religions and a Visiting Research Fellow and Scholar-in-Residence at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Previously she taught at Tufts University and universities in both the California Bay Area and in the Middle East. An international geopolitical consultant, she has offered advisory services to clients since 2009, including major global companies and the U.S. private sector, and shared her expertise with the White House from 2010 to 2013, and the United Nations in 2018-2019. Dr. Keynoush gave a talk on her best-selling book, Saudi Arabia and Iran: Friends or Foes?, at Princeton and was subsequently invited as a visiting scholar to the Mossavar-Rahmani Center in 2017 and 2018.  She is the author and coauthor of two subsequent books, The World Powers and Iran: Before, During and After the Nuclear Deal (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), and The Abraham Accords: National Security, Regional Order and Popular Representation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). At Princeton, she moderated a panel conversation, “Up to the Minute-Iran: Changing Perspectives,” co-sponsored by the Center and Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). Additionally, she gave several talks across campus, presented a conference paper, and served as a discussant at a SPIA graduate workshop in Prague, and convened an international roundtable of Middle East scholars entitled, Iran's Interregional Dynamics. Using regional primary sources, as well as Princeton Library's renowned Near Eastern Studies Collection, Keynoush published a book on the roundtable's findings entitled Iran’s Interregional Dynamics in the Near East (New York: Peter Lang, 2020) and a journal article on the same topic in Middle East Policy.