At the end of last year Iranian physicist, engineer, and human rights advocate Narges Mohammadi, serving a 16-year-prison sentence for establishing an organization dedicated to abolishing the death penalty in Iran, was transferred to a prison in the city of Zanjan. In March, a letter from her mother, Ozra Bazarganm, to Iran’s Chief Justice revealed that Narges Mohammadi has continued to face ill treatment and has been physically and sexually threatened by another inmate in that prison. On March 20, it was announced that 100,000 prisoners were to be released “conditionally” because of the spread of COVID-19 inside Iran’s prisons; this mass release apparently included some political prisoners, but Narges Mohammadi is among the prominent political prisoners who remain behind bars and still at risk.
Who We Are
Co-chairs
Joel L. Lebowitz, Rutgers University
Paul H. Plotz, M.D., Washington, DC
Walter Reich, George Washington University
Eugene Chudnovsky, Lehman College
Alexander Greer, Brooklyn College
Vice-chairs
Astronomy – Arno Penzias, New Enterprises Associates*
Biology – Max E. Gottesman, Columbia University
Chemistry – Zafra Lerman, MIMSAD Inc.
Computer Science – Rachelle Heller, The George Washington University
Computer Science – Jack Minker, University of Maryland, College Park
Engineering – Philip Sarachik, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering
Mathematics – Simon Levin, Princeton University
Medical Sciences – J. Joseph Blum, Duke University
Honorary Board Members
Nancy Andrews, Duke University
David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology*
Alan J. Bard, University of Texas
Jacob Bigeleisen (deceased), SUNY, Stony Brook
Raoul Bott (deceased), Harvard University
Owen Chamberlain (deceased), University of California, Berkeley
Stanley Deser, Brandeis University
Edward Gerjuoy, University of Pittsburg
David Gross, (2004 Nobel Prize in Physics), Kavil Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara*
Pierre Hohenberg (deceased), New York University
Walter Kohn (deceased), University of California, Santa Barbara*
James Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara
Peter Lax, New York University
Louis Nirenberg, New York University
Marshall Nirenberg (deceased), National Institutes of Health*
Honorary Board Members
John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto*
Stuart Rice, University of Chicago
Sir Richard J. Roberts, (1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine), New England Biolabs*
Myriam Sarachick, City College of New York
Harold Scheraga, Cornell University
Sylvan Schweber (deceased), Brandeis University
Maxine Singer, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University
Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin*
Myrna Weissman, Columbia University
Rosalyn S. Yalow (deceased), Mount Sinai School of Medicine*
* Nobel laureate