Cyrus Moussavi

Student, Columbia College

Cyrus Moussavi is a senior at Columbia College majoring in economics and philosophy.

Cyrus was born and raised in Iowa. His parents are both from Iran, and he spent much of his childhood traveling between the Midwest and the Middle East to visit family. Global connections left Cyrus with an interest in journalism and human rights. In 2005 Cyrus received a $50,000 college scholarship from the Freedom Forum and USA Today for his "risk-taking" journalism work in high school.

At Columbia, Cyrus has been an editor at the Spectator, coached a youth soccer team in Harlem and worked at one of New York's top hip-hop radio stations. He has interned at Parade magazine, worked at a beef jerky factory in Iowa, edited a book for Chicago poet Barry Lorberbaum and worked on sustainable energy research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has also volunteered with the Millennium Villages Project since he was a freshman. Over the past summer he had the opportunity to travel to the Millennium Village in Sauri, Kenya, where he spent two months conducting an independent oral history research project. He interviewed members of the community about their personal histories and their views of aid interventions in their area, and he is currently compiling this footage in a series of short clips for the Earth Institute Web site. His work was featured as part of MTV's inauguration night coverage.