Mahan Mirza

Mahan Mirza is executive director of the Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion. He is an Islamic studies scholar and an expert on religious literacy. Mirza has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 2020.

Mirza joined the University of Notre Dame in 2016 as professor of the practice for the Keough School of Global Affairs’ Contending Modernities research initiative, a flagship program of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is an advisor to Notre Dame’s Madrasa Discourses project, which equips Islamic religious leaders in India and Pakistan with the tools to engage with pluralism, modern science, and new philosophies.

Mirza previously served as dean of faculty at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, America’s first accredited Muslim liberal arts college. He edited two special issues of The Muslim World and served as assistant editor for the Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought.

Mirza holds a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA from Hartford Seminary, and a PhD in religious studies from Yale University.