Parvin Ahanchi (PhD) is a Leading Researcher at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences – Institutes of History and Archaeology and Ethnography – and is an expert on the archival collections of Branobel and other oil producing companies of the first oil boom in Azerbaijan.

Ahanchi was awarded a doctoral degree in history in 1993 at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1993. Ahanchi’s international carreer furthermore includes a Research Fellowship at Max Plank Institute (Goettingen) of History in 1996, and during 2008-2009 she was a Fulbright Scholar and Honorary Fellow in the Central Asian Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin and University of California.