Touraj Daryaee was born in Tehran, Iran in 1967. His elementary and secondary schooling was in Tehran, Iran and Athens, Greece. Daryaee took his Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999. He specializes in the history and culture of Ancient Persia. He is the Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Culture and the Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies & Culture at the University of California, Irvine.His books include Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr, A Middle Persian Text on Late Antique Geography, Epic, and History, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, 2002; History & Culture of the Sasanians, Qoqnoos Press, Tehran, 2003; and Mēnōg ī Xrad: The Spirit of Wisdom, Essays in Memory of Ahmad Tafazzoli, Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, 2003; Scholars and Humanists: S.H. Taqizadeh & W.B. Henning, Mazda Publishers, 2008; Late Antique Iran: Portrait of a Late Antique Empire, Mazda Publishers 2008; Sasanian Persian: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, IB Tauris, 2009; The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History, OUP, 2012; Excavating an Empire: Ancient Persian in Longue Duree, Mazda Publishers, 2014; Cyrus the Great: An Ancient Iranian King, Afshar Press, 2015.He is also the editor of the Nāme-ye Irān-e Bāstān, The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies at Iran University Press, as well as DABIR: Digital Archives and Brief notes and Iran Review at the University of California, Irvine.