Kianoush Naficy

Student Liaison

Kianoush is a second-year law student at the University of Washington. Born in Iran shortly after the Islamic Revolution, she and her family moved to the U.S. when she was three years old and have lived in the Seattle area ever since.

Kianoush attended Whitman College, where she majored in Sociology and wrote her honors thesis on second-generation identity construction. She also studied abroad in Italy, and served as a Resident Assistant to the Multi-Ethnic Center for Community Awareness (MECCA).

Prior to law school, Kianoush lived in China to work as an English instructor at Shantou University, and moved to Tehran for several months to volunteer as a translator and mentor at several human rights organizations. In law school, Kianoush has participated in the Immigrant Family Advocacy Project, served as a class representative to the Student Bar Association, and spent her 1L summer as an extern at the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement, a nonprofit human rights organization in San Francisco dedicated to representing the immigration needs of those affected by post-9/11 discrimination.

In her free time, she enjoys playing and writing music. After earning her J.D., Kianoush hopes to work in the field of immigration law or civil rights law (that is, unless she signs a record deal and lives out her dream of becoming a full-time musician).