University of Tehran - Notable People

Notable People

Many of the most important figures in Iranian political, academic and social life have been associated with the University of Tehran.

Politicians include the nationalist leader Mohammad Mosaddegh, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, former Prime Minister Jamshid Amouzegar and the recent reformist President Mohammad Khatami.

Academics include Lotfi A. Zadeh the inventor of fuzzy logic, Ali Javan who invented the gas laser and is ranked number 12 on the list of the top 100 living geniuses, intellectual and former Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and biophysicist Mohammad-Nabi Sarbolouki.

Art figures include renowned filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farhadi, actor Khosrow Shakibai and poet Mohammad-Taqi Bahar.

Other notable figures include Human Rights Lawyer Shirin Ebadi who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, pioneering architect Heydar Ghiai, prominent philosopher Hossein Nasr and reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi.

Alumni from the University of Tehran’s predecessor institutions the Dar ul-Funun and the Tehran School of Political Sciences include linguist Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, Bahá'í scholar Mírzá Abu'l-Fadl and former Prime Ministers Mohammad-Ali Foroughi and Ali Amini.

Some of the most prominent figures are named below:

Shirin Ebadi:is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's, children's, and refugee rights. She was admitted to the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965 and in 1969, upon graduation, passed the qualification exams to become a judge. After a six-month internship period, she officially became a judge in March of 1969. She continued her studies in University of Tehran in the meantime to pursue a master's degree in law in 1971.

Asghar Farhadi:is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. For his work as director, he has received one Golden Globe Award and one Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world by Time magazine in 2012.He is a graduate of Theatre, with a BA in Dramatic Arts and MA in Stage Direction from University of Tehran and Tarbiat Modarres University, respectively.

Siavash Teimouri: is a high ranked Iranian architect and artist. He was born in Tehran, Iran. After getting his master from University of Tehran, faculty of fine arts in 1962, he then moved to Paris and received his Phd in architecture from École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1969. While working with top class architects he received the French Association of Architects's prize in 1967. He achieved the first place in design competition for University of Isfahan's faculty of science in 1973. He is a member of the French Society of Architects and also member of the board of trustees of the Iran Architectural Pride Worthies Foundation.

Mohammad Mosaddegh:was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until being overthrown in a coup d'état in 1953.His administration introduced a wide range of social and political reforms but is most notable for its nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC) (later British Petroleum or BP).Mosaddegh received his Licence en Droit as well as his Doctor of law from the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. Mosaddegh also taught at the University of Tehran at the start of World War I before beginning his long political career.

Ali Javan:is an Iranian American physicist and inventor at MIT. His main contributions to science have been in the fields of quantum physics and spectroscopy. He co-invented the gas laser in 1960, with William R. Bennett. Ali Javan has been ranked Number 12 on the list of the Top 100 living geniuses.He graduated from Alborz High School, started his university studies at University of Tehran and came to the United States in 1948 right after the war.

Lotfi A. Zadeh:is a mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher and professor emeritus of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.Zadeh, in his theory of fuzzy sets, proposed using a membership function (with a range covering the interval ) operating on the domain of all possible values. He proposed new operations for the calculus of logic and showed that fuzzy logic was a generalisation of classical and Boolean logic. He also proposed fuzzy numbers as a special case of fuzzy sets, as well as the corresponding rules for consistent mathematical operations (fuzzy arithmetic).In 1942, he graduated from the University of Tehran with a degree in electrical engineering (Fanni).

Mohammad Khatami:is an Iranian scholar, Shiite theologian, and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s. He is currently one of the leaders of the Iranian Green Movement, and an outspoken critic of the President Ahmadinejad's government.Khatami is known for his proposal of Dialogue Among Civilizations. The United Nations proclaimed the year 2001 as the United Nations' Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, on Khatami's suggestion.Khatami received a B.A. in Western philosophy from Isfahan University, but left academia while studying for a Master's degree in Educational Sciences at University of Tehran and went to Qom to complete his previous studies in Islamic sciences.

Mohammad Beheshti:was an Iranian scholar, writer, jurist and one of the main architects of the constitution of the Islamic Republic in Iran. He was the secretary-general of the Islamic Republic Party, and the head of Iran's judicial system. He was assassinated together with more than seventy members of the Islamic Republic party on June 28, 1981.Beheshti was born in Isfahan and studied both at the University of Tehran and under Allameh Tabatabaei in Qom.

Mehdi Bazargan:was a prominent Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first prime minister after the Iranian Revolution of 1979.A well-respected religious intellectual, known for his honesty and expertise in the Islamic and secular sciences, he is credited with being one of the founders of the contemporary intellectual movement in Iran. He was the head of the first engineering department of University of Tehran.

Jamshid Amouzegar:is an Iranian economist, artist and politician who was Prime Minister of Iran from 7 August 1977 to 27 August 1978 when he resigned. Prior to that, he was Minister of Interior and Minister of Finance in the cabinet of Amir-Abbas Hoveida. He was the leader of Rastakhiz Party during his tenure as prime minister. He was graduated with degrees in Law and Engineering from University of Tehran.