Formerly an Associate Member at the Centre for Iranian Studies at SOAS, where she was Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow, Ghoncheh conducts research on Iran-related themes as a British Academy grant-holder. She is currently researching Iranian-Russian alignment in the Middle East.

Ghoncheh has authored books, articles and opinion pieces on a broad range of Iran-related themes. She frequently participates in workshops and roundtables, and regularly engages with the international media. Ghoncheh also works on consultancy projects, bridging the theory-practice gap by providing expertise to the wider non-academic community.

Ghoncheh’s research is positioned at the nexus of modern Iranian history, comparative politics and global history. In her previous research, she has focused on revolution and reform in Iran, both in terms of the post-revolutionary trajectory of the Iranian state and historical processes of modernisation. She has also investigated the latter aspect through a comparison with Russia. This strand of her research continues to inspire her comparative approach. The second strand of her research focuses more specifically on Iran’s domestic politics and state-society relations. Finally, her research negotiates the tension between Iran and the west further back in history. She adopts a post-Saidian approach, which puts forward an integrative approach to Iranian history by appreciating the intense linkages and exposures of the country to global historical trends.