DR. ELAHÉ MIR-DJALALI OMIDYAR is founder and President of the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based national non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Persian culture as a way of helping people rediscover the importance of cultural heritage. A linguist and former faculty at Georgetown University and at the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Mir-Djalali is a recognized expert in the fields of language education, cross-cultural communication, and Persian studies. She has taught Fundamentals of Linguistics, and Applied Linguistics at UC Berkeley, French, and Persian at Georgetown University, and held methodology workshops in universities across the United States, and produced works on Iranian and American perceptions and their impact on cultural understanding. Besides her contributions to the academe, she has held executive positions at Rapport, Inc. and the Institute of Comparative Social and Cultural Studies. Dr. Mir-Djalali received her doctorate degree in linguistics with honors from the Sorbonne in France, as well as two Master.s degrees from Sorbonne and from Georgetown University. The Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, founded in 2000 by Elahé and Pierre Omidyar, is chaired by Dr. Elahé Mir-Djalali Omidyar, its President and CEO.