Personalities

Lady Kharrazi, the founder and director of Toos Foundation, is an accomplished artist and a successful businesswoman. As a ballerina and classical singer, she has performed in Europe, the Middle East and USA; and as a  designer and property developer, she has managed many successful ventures. She has established a number of companies and trusts continuing as a consultant to many of them.

Lady Kharrazi is a staunch supporter of the arts and a champion of human rights. She continues to work extensively with children affected by armed conflict throughout the Middle East and Asia and has sponsored many postgraduate students from Asia at Western universities through her charities. She has acted as Harvard University’s Ambassador to the Middle East and is a member of Dean’s International Council of the Harris School at the University of Chicago.

Baroness Cox, a cross-bench member of the British House of Lords was the Deputy Speaker of the House from 1985 to 2004. She is also the Chair of the British Armenia All-Party Parliamentary Group and the Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University.

She is the founder of The Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), which works to provide change through aid for that suffering persecution. Baroness Cox travels to HART-funded aid and advocacy programmes in Nagorno Karabagh, East and West Burma, East Timor, India, Nigeria, southern Sudan and northern Uganda.

Baroness Cox is a patron of the Toos Foundation and has supported its activities from its early beginnings.

Professor O’Muircheartaigh is dean of the Harris School of the University of Chicago and a senior fellow in the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). He is the principal investigator on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Internet Panel Recruitment Survey. He is also responsible for the development of methodological innovations in sample design for NORC’s face-to-face surveys in the U.S.

He has served as a consultant to a wide range of public and commercial organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands. Through his work with the United Nations, OECD, the Commission of the European Communities, the International Association for Educational Assessment, and others, Professor O’Muircheartaigh has also worked in China, Myan Mar, Kenya, Lesotho, and Peru.

Professor Mayer served as the dean of the Harris School, University of Chicago, from 2002 to 2009. She has numerous publications on the measurement of poverty and its effects. She is the past director and deputy director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. She has also served as an associate editor for the American Journal of Sociology.

Susan Mayer has been a patron of the Toos Foundation since its early days and has spoken at its events. She is currently doing research on intergenerational economic mobility.

Dr Raja Kamal is the Senior Vice President for Institute Relations at the Buck Institute for Aging Research. Previously, Dr Kamal was the Senior Associate Dean at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and prior to that a Director of New Initiatives and International Development at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. An economist by training, Dr Kamal was an adjunct professor of economics and international business at Boston University and is a frequent contributor to newspapers in the United States and abroad. His work has also been published in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish newspapers.

Mahmoud Khoshnam is a music critic. He was the editor of Music Review magazine in the years 1960-1963. He has taught literature at the Persian National Music Conservatory in Tehran and was the founder and editor of Roudaky Monthly for five years.

In 1980 he moved to Germany. In the following years, he has cooperated with a number of journals and radio stations. He has created a number of programs for Deutsche Welle and BBC Persian Service.

His main works have focused on Persian folk and pop music. Mr Khoshnam has been a patron and supporter of Toos Foundation from its early days and has collaborated in a number of its events.

Shiva Shafighian a retired paediatrician (and a member of Royal College of Surgeons of England), studied fine arts after retirement and is a currently a painter. But being the daughter of Lobat Vala (the famous Iranian Poet) she has always had a keen interest in Persian literature too. She has recently published her first book of poems,

She has been a supporter of the Toos Foundation from the beginning and has collaborated in some of its events. She is on the Foundation’s academic advisory board.

Jane Lewisohn has been a research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of Exeter University and the music department of the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is a graduate of Shiraz University and fluent in Persian. Her latest works include a major undertaking in regards to the golha programme. She has done a great deal in making sure this valuable musical collection is preserved.

She has been involved with the Toos Foundation since early beginnings and has collaborated with a number of its events especially the Immortal Flowers which was devoted to the golha programme and its makers. She is currently on Toos Foundation’s academic advisory board.

Dr Leonard Lewisohn‏ is a Senior Lecturer in Persian language, Sufism, the history of Iran, as well as on courses on Persian texts and Persian poetry at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of the University of Exeter in England. He specializes in translation of Persian Sufi poets and prose texts. He is editor of the Mawlana Rumi Review, an annual academic journal devoted to Molavi.

He has also written a number of books on Iranian Sufi tradition and some of its exponents including Attar, Molavi, Hafez and Shabestari. Dr Lewisohn has contributed articles to the Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions, Encyclopedia of Islam and Encyclopaedia Iranica. He has been helping the Toos Foundation on a number of its projects and is currently on its academic advisory board.