Dawny'all Heydari

Dawny'all Heydari (she/her) is a transgender Iranian American scholar activist from the Los Angeles area. She is a second-year doctoral student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dawny'all's research ties post-World War II U.S.-Israel-Palestine-Iran international relations to domestic developments in the U.S., including the rise of the white Christian nationalist movement, Iranian American and Palestinian American activism, and frontline-led Black and Latinx environmental justice movements around the ports and logistics sectors. Drawing from Comparative Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and Geography, her scholarship harnesses ethnography, cultural studies, and structural analysis in service of public knowledge and movements for social and environmental change.

Outside of academia, Dawny'all has pursued a career in grassroots political campaigning. She has a history of accelerating the decarbonization of the global ocean shipping industry with the international environmental nongovernmental organization Pacific Environment, managing a local-to-global climate campaign that moved the United Nations to set 2030 and 2040 greenhouse gas emissions-reduction benchmarks for global shipping to better align the sector with the Paris Agreement. Beyond Pacific Environment, Dawny'all has consulted Essie Justice Group, a community-based prison abolition organization that authored the Movement for Black Lives's federal policy platform, on campaigning for climate justice in response to the 2025 Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County. She also served as a field organizer on the Bernie 2020 presidential campaign in Iowa.

Dawny'all is a recipient of the Berkeley Fellowship, as well as the Asian American Pacific Islander Data Project Grant from UC Berkeley's Asian American Research Center. She earned a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University, where she also received a Human Rights Certificate from Yale Law School.

Writing 

Heydari, Dawny’all. “Counter-Speculative Worldmaking in the Inland Empire during a Time of Genocide: SWANA–Latinx Solidarities in Relation to Transpacific Trade at Southern California Ports.” Sponsored Panel on Southwest Asias, Minor Geographies, and the Transpacific, Association for Asian American Studies Annual Conference, Honolulu, HI, April 2026.

Heydari, Dawny’all. “Contesting Southern California Trade Futures: Intersectional Imaginaries across Palestinian, Labor, and Environmental Justice Movements.” Session on Seeing Like a State: Technoscience, Capital and Nature, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, March 2026.

Heydari, Dawny’all. “America as White Christian Militaristic Messiah of Israeli Jews: John Hagee’s Racial-Religious End of Times Hierarchies in the Israel–Gaza War of 2023–Present.” Race and Religion Symposium, Association for the Sociology of Religion Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, August 10, 2025.

Heydari, Dawny’all. “For a Different Kind of Apocalypse—From LA to Tehran.” Common Dreams, July 3, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/los-angeles-to-tehran

Heydari, Dawny’all. “As a Cease-Fire Brings Some Relief to Gaza, We Must Make Sure It Lasts.” Common Dreams, January 21, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/make-gaza-cease-fire-last

Heydari, Dawny’all. “Voting for Kamala Harris With My Eyes Wide Open.” Common Dreams, October 29, 2024. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/why-should-i-vote-for-kamala-harris