Dawny'all Heydari

Dawny'all Heydari is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her 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, mass incarceration of Black and Brown communities following racial justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s, conservative backlashes against growing political responses to mitigate anthropogenic climate change, and Iranian American and Palestinian American activism. Dawny'all is a recipient of the Berkeley Fellowship. 

Outside of academia, Dawny'all has pursued a career in grassroots political organizing. 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 caused international shipping giant Maersk to accelerate its climate ambitions by a decade, moved the United Nations International Maritime Organization to set 2030 and 2040 greenhouse gas emissions-reduction benchmarks for global shipping to better align with the Paris Agreement, and influenced the United States Environmental Protection Agency to approve an air quality regulation for California which will result in a 55% reduction of cancer risk near the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Richmond and yield $2.3 billion in savings from prevented adverse health outcomes. 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.