United States Columbia University A. V. Williams Jackson was an early
American scholar on
Indo-European languages and worked as a
Columbia University professor. Jackson was known for producing a grammar of the
Avestan language. The monumental
Encyclopedia Iranica project was started in 1985 and led by retired Columbia University professor,
Ehsan Yarshater.
Harvard University Richard N. Frye developed Iranian studies program in the 1950s at
Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
University of California, Los Angeles An Iranian studies program was created at the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1963 in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC) that was established by Wolf Leslau a few years before, in 1959. The doctoral program at UCLA is the largest program in North America, and was the home institution of Professor emeritus Hanns-Peter Schmidt who used to read Old Iranian and Old Indic (Indo-Iranistik), and is now led by
M. Rahim Shayegan who also specializes in Ancient Iran. In 2021, UCLA hosted an Indo-Persian Musical Confluence gathering, which spanned several days and was focused on the history between the
sitar and
setar instruments.
Other schools During the
Iranian Revolution (1978–1979) the American academic centers in Iran were closed and their assets seized. Over the past three decades since then, lack of funding and the difficulty of research travel to Iran have been major obstacles to Iranian Studies scholars that are based in North America. Other universities in the United States where Iranian Studies classes are offered include the
University of Chicago;
Princeton University;
Stanford University;
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the
University of Arizona; the
University of Oklahoma; the
University of Maryland; the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor;
Ohio State University;
Quinnipiac University;
University of Texas at Austin;
University of Virginia;
University of Washington; and
Indiana University, Bloomington. Within the
University of California system, programs in Iran Studies are taught at the University of California, Los Angeles,
University of California, Irvine, and
San Francisco State University. The
International Society for Iranian Studies (previously known as the Society for Iranian Studies) was founded by a group of Iranian graduate students in 1967 and began producing a journal,
Iranian Studies. The field expanded considerably during the 1970s, with a number of Americans having served in the
Peace Corps in Iran taking up academic positions. Close relations between Iran and the US facilitated the growth of academic programs as well as the
Asia Institute in
Shiraz and the
American Institute of Iranian Studies.
Canada The
University of Toronto has an Iranian studies program.
The Yarshater Lectureship in Avestan and Pahlavi Languages established at the
University of Toronto is one of the most prestigious honor in the field. In 2021, the University of Toronto partnered with the
Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation for a multiyear partnership to create the
Iranian Women Poets and
Iranian Cinema digital projects. == Organizations ==