Ladan Boroumand is co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran, a nongovernmental organization that promotes human rights awareness through education and information dissemination, including by way of the Omid memorial, a website that documents human rights abuses committed by the Islamic Republic and memorializes its victims. She is the co-laureate of the 2009 Lech Walesa Award for her work in defense of human rights in Iran.

@LadiKhanom

Jason Brodsky is policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). He has previously conducted research at the Wilson Center and been a fellow at the White House in the Executive Office of the President. His research specialties include leadership dynamics in Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC; the regime's proxy and partner network; and US Middle East policy.

@JasonMBrodsky

Marcus Kolga is a digital communications, global human rights, sanctions, disinformation and cyber security expert. He is a writer, documentary filmmaker and political activist. He comments regularly on foreign policy, international human rights and disinformation issues in Canadian and international media, and his opinions are published internationally. His award winning documentary films have been broadcast to audiences around the world. He helped lead the Canadian campaign for global Magnitsky human rights campaign and continues to advocate internationally to expand the legislation, including testifying and briefing policy makers in Canada, Latvia, Estonia, UK and Australia.

@kolga

Nikahang Kowsar is known by Iranians for his cartoon mocking Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi in 2000. That cartoon triggered the protest of thousands of clergymen in the city of Qom, shouting for the cartoonist’s death.

But some also recognize him as the geologist who warned President Khatami in 2001 about the effects of bad water management and depletion of aquifers.

Now in exile, Kowsar produces a weekly show about water scarcity and appears on TV as an expert commentator about Iran’s water crisis.

@nikahang

Shuvaloy Majumdar brings experience in international affairs at its highest levels, and in the foreign policy issues formative to the last fifteen years. In Ottawa, between 2011 and 2015, he served as the Director of Policy to successive Canadian Foreign Ministers. Living in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2010, he led the International Republican Institute (IRI), a Washington-based nonpartisan organization then chaired by US Senator John McCain. This overseas experience complemented his anti-human trafficking efforts in Southeast Asia between 2000 and 2003, for which he was recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal. Bridging practice with theory, He was a visiting foreign policy scholar at the University of British Columbia's Liu Institute for Global Studies from 2010 to 2011. On April 21, 2022, he was sanctioned by the Kremlin. He founded and heads the Foreign Policy and National Security program at Canada’s Macdonald Laurier Institute where he is a Munk Senior Fellow, and serves as a Board Member of the Parliamentary Centre.

@shuvmajumdar

Alireza Nader is Engagement Director at the National Union for a Democratic Iran (NUFDI). He has been a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and RAND Corporation, has lectured at the George Washington University, and conducted research and analytical courses for US Special Forces and the US Department of Defense. He serves on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities.

@AlirezaNader

Saeed Paivandi is professor of education at the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France. He was previously associate professor at the University of Paris 8 for 15 years. His research focuses on education in Iran from an international comparative perspective -- in particular, the philosophy of education policy in Iran and the official textbook discourse. He has directed several research initiatives on the experience of the Islamization of the Iranian educational system after the 1979 revolution. He has published two books and over 40 scientific journal articles and book chapters on education in Iran in French, English and Persian. He is author of the Freedom House study “Discrimination and Intolerance in Iran’s Textbooks”.

Kaveh Shahrooz is a lawyer and human rights activist, and a Senior Fellow at Canada’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He is also a former Senior Policy Advisor on human rights to Global Affairs Canada. A graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Toronto, he has written widely on human rights issues and international affairs. He led a successful effort to convince Canada's parliament to recognize the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran as constituting crimes against humanity under international law.

@kshahrooz

Sharan Tabari was an elected member of the City of Westminster and served the city as Councillor for two consecutive terms. She currently hosts a Persian language TV program called “The Future of Iran” and was senior advisor to a project of the same name at the London-based think tank the Legatum Institute, where she was also a fellow. She has been a journalist with the BBC and Radio Free Europe and a university lecturer in political science in Iran.

@STabari

Sarah Teich is a Canadian attorney, consultant, author, and Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. She helps human rights advocates from Iran and other countries to press for accountability under international law. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Toronto, an M.A. (magna cum laude) in Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security, and undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Sociology from McGill University. She has also studied law at the National University of Singapore. Sarah has held research positions at the Munk School of Global Affairs (Toronto) and at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in Israel. She has worked on classified projects for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and led a Canadian National Security Working Group delivering policy submissions to the Parliament of Canada. Her current research focuses on international human rights law and national security law and policy. Sarah’s current affiliations include the Canadian Coalition Against Terror (C-CAT), the Canadian Security Research Group (CSRG), and the International Counter-Terrorism Review (ICTR).

@SarahTTeich