Dr. Elham Mireshghi

Biography

Elham Mireshghi is a cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching expertise spans multiple fields, including public policy, medical anthropology, economic anthropology, morality, bioethics, and Islamic law, with a regional focus on Iran and the larger Middle East. She earned her PhD from the University of California, Irvine, after completing her BSc in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Mireshghi's ethnographic research investigates the implementation of Iran’s unique organ transplantation policy, which regulates monetary transactions between living unrelated kidney donors and recipients. She examines the formation of fatwas that facilitate policy and the moral valuations associated with the exchange, challenging widespread conceptualizations of bodily commodification. Her research has received funding from prestigious organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. At the University of Chicago, Mireshghi teaches a sequence of courses in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division and graduate-level courses in the Divinity School, covering diverse topics such as 'Islamic Jurisprudence, Reason of State,' 'Islam and Biomedicine,' and 'Public Policy and Bureaucracy.'

Research Interests