IIR Alumni Spotlight: Dr. Ismail Nooraddini

Dr. Ismail Nooraddini is a sociologist and child of an Iranian immigrant. Dr. Nooraddini worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute for Immigration Research (IIR) from 2017 to 2020 and completed his PhD in Sociology at George Mason University in 2022. He is currently an Analytics Associate Manager at Accenture Federal Services, serving as a survey and methodology consultant for the U.S. Department of State.

Dr. Nooraddini's childhood and his education intersected to give rise to his interest in studying immigration.  Growing up as a second-generation immigrant came with its benefits and set backs. His experiences led to his theoretical interests in sociology, but his education and work experience gave him the tools necessary to help others. It wasn’t until he left Westat to go backpacking across South America that he realized it was time to return to school to be in a better position to help immigrants and their families through research or policy work. After returning to the United States, he “got a job at EurekaFacts and a teaching job at Hood College, where I taught research methods to social work students.”

He describes his acceptance into the Sociology PhD program at George Mason as "the perfect opportunity, because they had an institute that studied immigrants, the IIR." His doctoral studies at Mason required him to take advanced coursework and allowed him to question: "how do these methods apply with immigrant communities?" He recalls the IIR’s "colloquial nature" and opportunity to be "around like-minded scholars [and] talking about our research" as his fondest memories of his time at the Institute: "For a while, my fondest memory was working side-by-side of people my age who were interested in things that I was interested in. And because we were all genuinely interested in helping immigrants from different perspectives, it was a very, very unique environment."

Dr. Nooraddini explains that “everything” he learned at the IIR has been relevant for his subsequent work, but highlighted “speaking across different audiences…[as] the skill set I use most often [now].” He elaborates that the IIR’s “emphasis on delivering fact-based information in user-friendly formats,” such as iDod fact sheets, has informed his focus on prioritizing client-based needs in his work: “The IIR was great with Jim [Witte] particularly because Jim…was always fixated on the client, and I've taken that with me to where I was, too.” Dr. Nooraddini reflects on the benefits of the immigration and hands-on methods expertise that he developed as a Graduate Research Assistant at the IIR:

“The IIR gave me a very, very thorough overview of foreign-born individuals and immigrants. I better understand the process of rules for immigrants in the United States and at the border. I understand how these rules get created and enforced and how they can get shot down or revised…I would say the methods…it was an enlightening experience to not only manage and clean those [American Community Survey] data sets, but also to analyze the data with the intent of answering stakeholder questions.”

Dr. Nooraddini encourages current Mason undergraduate and graduate students interested in migration to first "figure out what it is you want to do" and then to not "be afraid to talk to people with different ideas or immigrants themselves!" He goes onto explain that "this sounds like a very basic thing, but I don't think enough people live up to it in the field of immigration." He also recommends being "as involved in methods as possible…[to] better understand the immigrants themselves." He said that too often we overlook immigrants when working with stakeholders, and suggested future researchers should understand the importance of speaking with the immigrants.

In the next ten years, Dr. Nooraddini plans "to run a nonprofit that actually puts immigrants in the forefront…and is plugged into a community that engages with community members who may or may not have an issue with these immigrant communities." Through this work, he hopes to illuminate what it means to tell a story and "connect different stories to one larger narrative." As he looks to the future, Dr. Nooraddini also looks back and reflects on the importance of his time at the IIR for building his "confiden[ce] to be in a position to actually oversee a nonprofit and conduct the research I need to help the betterment of the immigrants in those communities."