Dr. Cyrus Alai
Dr Alai received his PhD degree (Dr.-Ing.) from Technische Universität, Berlin-Charlottenburg. He completed the Executive Controls Program – a management course at the University of Syracuse, and lectured at the University of Teheran for eight years. Dr. Alai founded a group of engineering companies in Iran, which he directed for twenty years. He settled later in England, working as a consulting engineer and studying history of cartography in his free time. He served nine years as the honorary treasurer of the International Map Collector’s Society (IMCoS), and wrote numerous articles and gave many lectures (including one at SOAS on 8th NOV 2006 at the Khalili Lecture Room organized by SOAS and Iran Heritage). His articles “The Cartography of Persia” and “The Traditional Cartography of Classical Islamic Societies.” (in English and Persian) appeared in several prestigious cartographic and cultural periodicals, such as: Map Collector, IMCoS Journal, Mercator’s World, Portolan, Journal of the Iran Society, Iranshenasi (Persian), and Rahavard. The entry “Geography iv, Cartography of Persia” in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, has been written by him. He also collected old maps of Persia and owns perhaps the largest personal collection of such maps. Dr. Alai recognized that Persia has been mapped extensively for centuries but the absence of a good map-history and carto-bibliography has often deterred scholars from making use of such maps. Therefore, he embarked on a lengthy (about 20 years) investigation into the old maps of Persia and visited major map collections and libraries in many countries. As a result, he produced a monumental work in two volumes: General Maps of Persia, 1477-1925 appeared in 2005, and Special Maps of Persia in 2010, both published by BRILL in Leiden, The Netherlands.
Dr. Hormoz Hekmat
Dr. Hekmat was the editor of “Iran Nameh” a quarterly journal. He was a Fulbright Scholar (1958-59) and a Senior Fellow at Tehran Research Center for Social Sciences (1975-77). Dr. Hekmat taught political science and international law at Utica College of Syracuse University (1967-1970) and Tehran University (1974-81). He is also a former member of Iranian Academy of languages (1976-78) and the Board of Legal Advisors to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (1977-8).
Dr. Touraj Parsi
Dr. Parsi is a researcher and expert on Iranian history. He is a former university professor and researcher at The Academy of Gondishapur in Iran and Uppsala University in Stockholm (Sweden). Dr. Parsi is a member of the Board of Trustees, Pasargad Heritage Foundation and the author of tens of articles and papers on the history and culture of Iran.
