Contact Information
707 S Mathews Avenue
M/C 168
Urbana, IL 61801
Biography
Azadeh Aghighi completed her Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures with a specialization in Islamic Studies at Indiana University of Bloomington in Spring 2023. She is currently a lecturer and the Director of the Persian Language in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In the 2024-2025 academic year, she is teaching courses in the Department of Linguistics that cover elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of Persian, as well as "Introduction to Islam" and "The Qur'an" in the Department of Religion at UIUC.
Her areas of expertise encompass Islamic Studies, Persian, and Arabic languages, and her research interests include Islamic Feminism, Gender Studies, Islamic Law, Hadith Studies, and Qurʾānic Hermeneutics.
Throughout her career, she has received numerous prestigious awards, including over fifty national recognitions for her outstanding performance in Qurʾān recitation competitions in Iran. Her notable accomplishments also include being honored with the esteemed "Distinguished M.A. Dissertation Award" in Iran and the "Indiana University Ph.D. Dissertation Completion Award" in 2021-2022, distinctions seldom awarded to students in the humanities.
She has taught courses on the fundamental and historical aspects of Islam, as well as offering courses in Arabic and Persian languages at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Since 2019, she has actively engaged in teaching Persian language at introductory and intermediate levels as part of Indiana University's Summer Language Workshop.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Department of Linguistic
Department of Religion