Dr. Kelly J. Shannon, Ph.D.

Dr. Kelly J. Shannon currently a visiting scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) at the George Washington University (GWU). In 2023-2024, she was a W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Shannon was previously associate professor of history at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) from 2014-2024, where she also served as the Chastain-Johnston Middle Eastern Studies distinguished professor in peace studies from 2019-2022 and the executive director of the Center for Peace, Justice, and Human Rights (PJHR) from 2020-2023.

Shannon specializes in the 20th century history of U.S. foreign relations. Her research focuses on U.S. relations with Iran, the Islamic world, women’s human rights, transnational history, and international relations. Her 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 1979 Iranian Revolution. Her other publications include book chapters and journal articles on U.S.-Iran relations, President Harry Truman and the Middle East, the international movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM), U.S. encounters with Saudi gender relations during the first Gulf War, and state of the field essays.

Shannon is currently writing a monograph about the multiple forms of American-Iranian relations – diplomatic, cultural, military, economic, people-to-people, and transnational – during the first half of the twentieth century, entitled The Ties That Bind: U.S.-Iran Relations, 1905-1953 and which is under contract with Columbia University Press.

At Florida Atlantic University, Shannon taught undergraduate courses on 20th century U.S. history, U.S. women’s history, U.S. diplomatic history, U.S.-Islamic relations, the history of human rights, historical methods, and the senior seminar. She taught graduate readings courses and research seminars on U.S. foreign relations history, women’s history, and the teaching practicum, and advised M.A. theses.

Shannon is the recipient of many grants and honors, including a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend, a Rockefeller Archive Foundation Research Stipend, the Samuel Flagg Bemis Research Grant from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the SHAFR Summer Institute, and the Marvin Wachman Fellowship in Force and Diplomacy from the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy (CENFAD) at Temple University. She is an active member of SHAFR, as well as several other scholarly organizations. Shannon has served on multiple SHAFR committees, including an elected three-year term on the on the SHAFR Executive Council from 2019-2021. She has also spoken in many academic and public settings, have written articles in venues like the Washington Post and IranSource, and have been interviewed by NPR, The Atlantic, multiple podcasts, and other media outlets about Iran and other topics.

Shannon the winner of the 2019 Stuart L. Bernath Lecture Prize awarded by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. One of the highest honors in the field of U.S. foreign relations history, the Bernath Lecture Prize recognizes and encourages excellence in research and teaching by a younger historian (under age 41 or within 10 years of earning the Ph.D.). Prior winners have gone on to become leading scholars in the field. As part of the award, she delivered her Bernath Lecture, “Approaching the Islamic World,” at the SHAFR luncheon held at the American Historical Association annual conference in New York City in January 2020, and her lecture was published in the June 2020 issue of Diplomatic History.

In addition to being a faculty member and scholar, Shannon also a consultant for Women’s Learning Partnership. WLP is a transnational, non-profit NGO that partners with 20 autonomous women’s rights organizations located throughout the Global South to promote women’s leadership, civic engagement, and human rights. Finally, she is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project (ISP) Working Group.

Prior to joining the faculty at FAU in 2014, Shannon was a visiting assistant professor of history at La Salle University in Philadelphia (2010-2011) and an assistant professor of history and international studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage (2011-2014). Shannon was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. She earned my Ph.D. in History from Temple University, M.A. in History from the University of Connecticut, and A.B. in History from Vassar College.

Sub-specialties:
History of U.S. foreign relations
U.S. history
modern Iranian history
U.S. foreign policy
diplomacy
international affairs
international relations
Iran
women's human rights
Iranian women
Islamic world