Seyedmahdi Khodaei

S. Mahdi Khodaei is a doctoral candidate in Human Rights and Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg (FAU). His research focuses on human rights movements in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian contexts, with particular attention to mobilisation strategies, state repression, and transnational advocacy.

His doctoral dissertation examines human rights movements in the Middle East during the first two decades of the 21st century, case study of Iran and Egypt. The project analyses movement structures, repertoires of contention, and regime responses, including forms of transnational repression, as well as the interaction between domestic activism and international human rights networks. His research is supervised by Prof. Dr. Michael Krennerich and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heiner Bielefeldt.

Khodaei holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights from FAU. His Master’s thesis explored the human rights implications of climate change, with a particular focus on how environmental transformations exacerbate patterns of discrimination and marginalisation among vulnerable groups in ethnically divided contexts.

Beyond his academic work, he has been actively involved in human rights research and practice, contributing to projects at the intersection of legal analysis, advocacy, and policy-oriented research.