Jenny Pierson graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in History and Middle Eastern Studies. Her history thesis examined the FBI’s 1970s sting operation—ABSCAM—and its repercussions on Arab American society. Her Middle Eastern thesis was a gender analysis of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the ways in which Iranian society of the time motivated the students involved to take part in the Hostage Crisis in gender specific ways.
Jenny traveled to the Middle East where she worked with the Dhiban Excavation and Development Project, as well as practiced Arabic. Upon return, she continued her Arabic through the FLAS fellowship. Also fluent in Mandarin, she hopes to incorporate both languages into her future studies, while expanding her research on gender in the developing world and women’s rights during the Cold War era. She hopes to pursue her PhD in History after graduation.
