Layla Soudavar Diba is a persian-American independent scholar and curator, specializing in 18th/19th-century and contemporary Persian art and the Qajar period. She has curated various exhibitions, such as the Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch 1783-1925 (1998-1999) exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and co-curated Iran Modern (2013) at New York’s Asia Society.
She was born as Layla Soudavar, into an Iranian-American family.She is related to Farah (née Diba) Pahlavi, the former Shahbanu (Empress) of homeland.Layla S. Diba holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (NYU).
