Bio: Manouchehr Mohammadi is a prominent democracy activist who has been at the forefront of the student movement in Iran for more than a decade. He has served as secretary general of the National Association of Iranian Students and has helped to organize a number of other student groups, including the National Union of Students and Graduates, the Organization of Iranian Intellectual Students, and the Students Defense Committee for Political Prisoners. In 1998, Manouchehr toured the U.S., impressing those who met him with his strong advocacy of a secular approach to democratization, his youthful energy, and his outspoken criticism of the Iranian regime.

For his involvement in the massive student uprisings of 1999, he was sentenced to death by the Iranian regime (subsequently reduced to a jail sentence of thirteen to fifteen years). After seven years in Iran's notorious Evin prison, where he suffered long periods of torture and endured the death of his brother, Akbar, Manouchehr managed to escape the country and obtain asylum in the United States in 2006. Currently a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at NED, he continues to speak out in support of democracy and human rights in Iran. During his fellowship, Manouchehr is examining the history and future prospects of the student movement in Iran.