Saeid Golkar is the UC Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, specializing in the politics of authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran and the broader Middle East and North Africa. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Tehran and has previously held research and teaching positions at Stanford University and Northwestern University. Golkar is the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Post-Revolutionary Iran (2015), which received the Washington Institute’s Silver Medal Prize. His forthcoming book, Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma, will be published by Rutgers University Press in Spring 2026.