Heather is a scholar-artist whose research extends upon two decades as a dancer, choreographer, artistic director, dramaturg, and curator among diasporic SWANA (particularly Iranian American) communities. Heather earned her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from UC Berkeley with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Following her doctoral studies, she was the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance Studies in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University (2016 - 2018) and the University of California Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Asian American Studies at UC Davis (2018 – 2020). As an undergraduate first-generation, community college-transfer student, she was a McNair scholar at the University of Washington, where she received her B.A. in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (Persian language concentration), with minors in Anthropology and Dance. In January 2024, Heather will join the faculty in the Department of Dance at UC Riverside as an assistant professor.

Heather’s scholarship examines the lives and artistic works of immigrant and diasporic Iranian dancers and performance artists residing in North America and Western Europe. She engages in ethnography, discourse analysis, and choreographic analysis to investigate the racialized and gendered economies of Iranian performance in transnational art markets and among diasporic audiences. She examines these artists’ works in relation to Euro-American geopolitics and (neo)liberal discourses on immigration, citizenship, the “war on terror,” and the dancing/performing body. She is currently working on her first book manuscript, tentatively titled Choreographing the Iranian Diaspora: Dance, Spectatorship, and the Politics of Belonging, which was selected for the Dance Studies Association’s “Series in Dance History” 2019 First-time Author Mentorship Program. Her publications include chapters in Futures of Dance Studies (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020), Performing Iran: Cultural Identity and Theatrical Performance (I.B. Tauris Press, 2021), and in Dance in the Persianate World: History, Aesthetics, and Performance (Mazda Press, forthcoming 2023), and a book review of Ida Meftahi’s Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage (Routledge, 2016) in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.

At Stanford and UC Berkeley, Heather taught a wide range of undergraduate lecture and studio-based courses that draw from her interdisciplinary research interests, which include critical dance studies, performance studies, transnational & postcolonial feminist theories, queer theories, critical race studies, comparative ethnic studies, West Asian American studies, and (diasporic) Iranian & Middle East studies.

Heather has presented her research at a variety of international academic conferences, including the Dance Studies Association, American Society for Theatre Research, Performance Studies International, American Studies Association, National Women’s Studies Association, the International Conference on Islamophobia Studies, and the Iranian Diaspora in Global Perspective conference.

Heather’s scholarship has been supported by a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Dance Studies, the University of California Dissertation Year Fellowship, the UC Berkeley Graduate Division Mentored Research Award, an Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) Vice President Achievement Award, the University of Washington McNair Scholars Program Research Grant, and the National Achievement Scholarship Program (NASP) Scholarship, among others.

Along with her academic training, Heather brings extensive experience as a dance- and performance-maker, choreographer, dance instructor, artistic director, dramaturg, and certified yoga instructor. Since 1997, she has performed in diverse performance events including street performance, site-specific performance, guerilla political circuses, cultural events, and full evening dance works on concert stages. In her dance technique and performance-making classes, she fosters learning environments that develop students as both technicians and artist-scholars who understand their creative practice as critical forms of knowledge-making. While embodying and honoring form, Heather provides students opportunities to enhance their practices through examining the cultural, historical, and political contexts from which they come.

Heather has extensive dance training in classical, folk, popular, and contemporary dance forms from Iran and Central Asia, as well as training in modern/contemporary dance and ballet. From 2012 - 2016, Heather danced with the SF Bay Area dance ensemble, Ballet Afsaneh. From 2007 - 2010, Heather was co-artistic director of Delshodeh Iranian and Central Asian Dance Ensemble (Seattle, WA), co-founded with Sonja Hinz. From 2001 - 2004, she was a principal dancer and choreographer in Shourangeez Persian Music & Dance Ensemble (Seattle, WA) and participated in the Northwest Folklife Association's Folklife-in-the-Schools program.