Welcome! I’m Zep Kalb, a sociologist and Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. I’m affiliated with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.

I study the political economy of development, with a focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. I’m particularly interested in how legacies of state-making shape authoritarian politics and economic development. My research integrates archival, survey, interview, and computational methods.

My work has been sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, and Bourse and Bazaar Foundation. It has appeared in journals such as Development and Change, the Journal of Agrarian Change, Mediterranean Politics, Middle Eastern Studies, and Iranian Studies.

At Princeton, I’m also developing my first book, which builds on my PhD dissertation on geopolitics, state formation, and worker politics in Iran.

I’m also deeply committed to public and policy engagement. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Phenomenal World, Foreign Policy, and regional platforms such as Al Monitor, Sharq, Jadaliyya, MERIP, and the Project on Middle East Political Science. I’ve also appeared as a commentator for outlets including the BCC and CNN.

I completed degrees in London, Oxford, Tehran, and Los Angeles, where I received a PhD in Sociology from UCLA. I lived in Iran for several years, including as a journalist for a local financial newspaper.

Outside of academia, I enjoy sports, travel, and reading the Financial Times. I also love movies and I’ve written extensively on global arthouse and non-Hollywood film.

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2-S-9 Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544

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