Ghahraman was born in Iran in 1981.[2] Her family lived in Mashhad, Iran's second largest city, where her father, an agricultural engineer, worked for the Ministry of Agriculture on the research and development of plant-based alternative fuels.[1] Her mother studied as a child psychologist but was ethically opposed to "psychologists having to pledge allegiance to a religion" so refused to sit the Islamic examinations required for her to practice and never worked as such.[3][4] Her father was Shia and her mother a Kurdish Sunni, though neither parent was religious.[5][6] Ghahraman describes herself as "agnostic—some days I would say atheist", noting that "It was important for me to get up and say I’m actually not religious at all, because the Middle East also has diversity within it".source:wikipedia