Her thesis advisor, Melissa Wall, a professor of mass communications, said Momeni was not looking to challenge government or religious policies in Iran. "She is not some crazed, radical person. She is a lovely young woman who wanted to document these Iranian women's lives. She did not have some big agenda," Wall said in an interview.
Momeni was born in California while her father was a civil engineering student at Cal State Los Angeles. Her family moved back to Iran when she was a child, Northridge officials said. A painter and musician, she earned an undergraduate degree in graphic design at Azad University of Tehran in 2002 and came to the Northridge campus two years ago.
Dave Blumenkrantz, a Northridge journalism professor who also serves on Momeni's thesis committee, recalled that he and other faculty members had asked her to consider dropping her trip to Iran in light of possible dangers even though her project is more related to art and photography involving women than to anything overtly political.
"Concerns were raised," Blumenkrantz said. "She said, 'Thanks for the advice, but this is something I really want to do.' She was not talking about it in a militant way, but her mind was made up.
"She's just brilliant and very talented," he said. "She is an original thinker."
At a campus news conference Thursday afternoon, University Provost Harold Hellenbrand said the arrest was particularly painful for a campus that "values intercultural communications a great deal." Momeni, he said, "occupies two worlds and was trying to make those two worlds understand each other."
At a court hearing Monday attended by relatives at one of Tehran's Revolutionary courts, officials said that no details would be disclosed until an investigation was complete.
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daragahi@latimes.com
larry.gordon@latimes.com
