Kelly Shannon
Kelly J. Shannon, Ph.D. is the HRC Oral History Fellow for the Hillary Rodham Clinton Oral History Project at GIWPS. Dr. Shannon is an award-winning historian of U.S. foreign relations, with a particular focus on Iran, women’s human rights, and the Islamic world. She is also a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University and was previously an Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), where she was was also the Director of FAU’s Center for Peace, Justice, and Human Rights (PJHR) from 2020-2023 and the Chastain-Johnston Middle Eastern Studies Distinguished Professor in Peace Studies from 2019-2022. She has also taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage, LaSalle University, Rutgers University-Camden, and Temple University. She earned her Bachelor’s in History from Vassar College, M.A. in History from the University of Connecticut, and Ph.D. in History from Temple University.
Dr. Shannon’s first book, U.S. Foreign Policy and Muslim Women’s Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), explored the integration of American concerns for women’s human rights into U.S. policy towards the Islamic world since the Iranian Revolution. Her other publications include book chapters and journal articles on the international movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM), U.S. encounters with Saudi gender relations during the first Gulf War, and U.S. relations with Iran, as well as op eds and articles in outlets such as the Washington Post, New York Times, and IranSource. She is an in-demand public speaker and media interviewee. Dr. Shannon is also the recipient of many honors and awards, including the 2019 Stuart L. Bernath Lecture Prize awarded by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) and a National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution. Dr. Shannon has served in multiple elected and appointed roles with SHAFR, including an elected term on its Executive Council and as one of the founding members of the SHAFR Committee on Women. She has also done policy-engaged work, including serving as a member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project (ISP) Working Group and as a consultant for Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP). Dr. Shannon is currently working on a book entitled The Ties That Bind: U.S.-Iran Relations, 1905-1953, which is under contract with Columbia University Press.