Association for Iranian Studies, Inc. (AIS), formerly The International Society for Iranian Studies, Inc. was founded in 1967 as an academic society to support and promote the field of Iranian Studies at the international level. AIS, an affiliated member of the international Middle East Studies Association (MESA), is a private, not-for-profit, non-political organization of persons interested in Iranian Studies in the broadest sense. An elected council and an executive council run the affairs of the organization. The objectives of the Society are to promote high standards of scholarship in the field, to encourage the teaching of Iranian Studies at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and to encourage and facilitate scholarly exchange amongst its international membership.