The 2014 conference, co-sponsored by DANESH Institute and the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies, will focus on a variety of topics related to the recent history of immigration from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries to the United States, psychosocial and economic adjustment of such immigrants, cultural and social implications, immigrants’ contributions, their success stories, and other related topics.

Established in 1994, the DANESH Institute is a nonpolitical, independent, not-for-profit educational organization. The purpose of the Institute is to stimulate and promote scholarly studies related to contemporary Iranian society and to Iranian communities abroad, particularly in the United States. The Institute has pursued this purpose by offering annual conferences, sponsoring special projects, and publishing newsletters and bulletins.

The study of the region extending from Morocco to Kazakhstan since the rise of Islam is coordinated, encouraged, and stimulated at the University of Chicago by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Established in 1965, the CMES has been supported by the Divisions of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago for more than fourty years.