Khosro Isfahani
Khosro Isfahani is NUFDI's research director. He is a journalist and open-source investigator working on all things Iran with a focus on human rights, security, and armed forces.
Between 2009 and 2021, he worked in Iran as a frontline human rights defender in addition to his journalism work, delivering rapid aid to at-risk communities while documenting human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by the Islamic Republic. While in Iran, he directly and indirectly worked with international media, human rights groups, and the United Nations.
Khosro left Iran in 2021 for a position at BBC Monitoring, where he was a lead analyst and reporter on Iran until 2023. At BBCM, he covered state killings and violence against protesters, along with military and security developments linked to Iran.
In 2023, he moved to the United States for a teaching position at Colby College in Maine, where he served as a professor and the human rights fellow with the Oak Institute and taught two courses on human rights and the modern history of Iran.
After his time at Colby, Khosro joined the Atlantic Council in 2024, leading the organization’s open-source investigation of human rights and international law violations committed by individuals within and linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran. His work with the Atlantic Council included in-depth investigations and publications with the University of Berkeley Human Rights Center and UCLA’s Promise Institute.
Khosro’s work has been published by various media outlets and American think tanks, including Atlantic Council’s IranSource, BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring, Slate, and Financial Tribune, along with rights groups such as Article 19. He has also contributed to the United Nations’ reporting on Iran.
His work includes reporting on social movements in Iran as well as state violence against protestors and persecution of marginalized communities. As an analyst, he tracks the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regional ambitions, military activity, and arms development; nuclear program; domestic, security, and foreign policy, along with war crimes committed by the regime and its proxies.
