Work to counter antiquities trafficking and art crime In 2018, Iyer joined the Antiquities Trafficking Unit within the
New York County District Attorney's office, working with
Matthew Bogdanos on major cases related to
art crime, the illicit
antiquities trade, and
looted art. She has been instrumental in the return of numerous looted, stolen, and trafficked cultural objects to their countries of origin. She has been involved in the
repatriation of cultural property to 15 different countries, amounting to the return of over 1,100 stolen cultural objects. Prior to this, she was a volunteer researcher in the Trafficking Culture research consortium and at the
University of Pennsylvania's Penn Cultural Heritage Center.
Harvard Law Review Palestinian genocide article controversy Two weeks into the
Gaza war, the online chairs of the
Harvard Law Review solicited an essay for the HLR's online blog from the Palestinian human rights lawyer and Harvard doctoral candidate
Rabea Eghbariah. Eghbariah's essay, titled "
The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine", stated that "the atrocities in Gaza amount to
genocide" and that "the distinctive nature of the domination Palestinians have faced should demand a new category of crime: 'Nakba'." After the essay had gone through the regular editorial process, including editing, fact-checking, and initial approval, Iyer intervened to stop its publication, citing safety concerns. After this, an emergency meeting of 100 editors of the
Harvard Law Review was called and an anonymous vote was held, in which 63% of editors voted against publication. The decision to pull the piece, which would have been the HLR's first publication by a Palestinian scholar, generated public controversy among editors and others. ==Personal life==