Acting Dean
Josef Korbel School of International Studies | University of Denver

Pardis Mahdavi, PhD is currently Acting Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Before coming to Denver, she was at Pomona College from 2006-2017 where she most recently served as professor and chair of anthropology and director of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College as well as Dean of Women. Her research interests include academic freedom, diversity and inclusion in higher education, gendered labor, human trafficking, migration, sexuality, human rights, youth culture, transnational feminism and public health in the context of changing global and political structures. She has published four single authored books and one edited volume in addition to numerous journal and news articles. She has been a fellow at the Social Sciences Research Council, the American Council on Learned Societies, Google Ideas, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Pardis’ current work looks at the ethics of engagement, cultural diplomacy, and the linkages between culture, diplomacy, and engagement. She is also completing a work of literary fiction based on fifteen years of ethnographic fieldwork and is engaged with questions of connections between ethnography, narrative, and fiction.