After spending much of the past two years studying in India, Sweden, Jordan, Austria and Iran, politics major Jaleh Taheri '07 of Redmond, Wash., had one last stop to make.

On her way back from Iran in spring 2007, she stopped by Paris, she says, "to talk with some experts on my honors thesis topic: political development in Iran, using women's empowerment as a barometer."

Taheri's thesis adviser Eric Hooglund, visiting professor of politics and an Iran expert, provided his student with important contacts during her visit to the Middle Eastern country. "I expected a difficult time meeting political leaders, but they were incredibly welcoming," she says. One of them, Massumeh Ebetekar, Iran's first female vice president and a spokeswoman during the 1979 hostage crisis, Taheri says, "sat and talked to me for two hours about women's rights and politics."

Iranian women see themselves as examples for Muslim and Middle Eastern countries, Taheri says. "What most surprised me was meeting rural women who were as independent and liberal-minded as urban women." Women in Iran are extremely well-educated — 70 percent of university students are female — she points out, and they are taking over fields once dominated by men. "This is what is going to shape Iran in the next 20 years, because the educated population of youth is huge."