After taking a B.A. at the College of Saint Teresa in Winona, Minnesota, Joan Gaughan taught history and English to eighth graders in Beloit, Wisconsin. The year was 1963. The assassination of President Kennedy that November prompted her to enlist in the Peace Corps and serve in Rasht and Lahijan, Iran. A trip to India during that service led to a life-long love of that country as well as love for the people of Iran. Her Peace Corps service was followed by a year of study at Columbia University, where she studied under Professor Ainslee Embree, who deepened her love for India, and Professor Ehsan Yar-Shater, who introduced her to the beauties of classical Persian literature. She transferred to the University of Michigan, where obtaining a doctorate in the British Empire allowed her to indulge her passion for both countries. After a thirty-year career teaching Western Civilization, Humanities, and English at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she has been able to reinvigorate her two youthful passions, study of Iran and India.