Graffiti Corner in Zamalek — Cairo, Egypt

Holly Dagres is analyst and commentator on Middle East affairs from Los Angeles, California.  A columnist for Aslan Media, Holly has also written for the Al-Monitor, Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, Muftah, Voice of America’s Middle East Voices, and Your Middle East.  She has done commentary for BBC Radio, Al Jazeera’s The Stream, HuffPost Live, The Young Turks Common Room, as well as other shows.  She is known as the first Iranian-American contestant in the Miss California USA beauty pageant.

Born to an Iranian mother and American father, Holly’s parents would divorce less than a decade later.  At the age of twelve, her life changed forever when she moved to Iran with her mother.  The post 9/11 world and her experiences in the Middle East would kindle her interest in international affairs.  Holly graduated valedictorian from Tehran International School.  She then went on to attend the University of California, Los Angeles with a double major in Political Science and French.  The winter of her senior year, she was accepted into the Center for American Politics and Public Policy to work on her senior thesis and intern at the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington, DC under the auspice of Ambassador Phil C. Wilcox.

After finishing her bachelors, Holly became fascinated with the uprisings in the Middle East.  She decided to pack her bags and head to Egypt in August 2011 to watch history unfold after the January 25th Revolution.  Holly is currently pursuing her Masters at the American University in Cairo, where she is also a researcher and reporter at the Cairo Review of Global Affairs.

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