Roxana Saberi is an Iranian-American journalist[1] and former Miss North Dakota pageant winner. She was born in New Jersey/USA on April 26, 1977 from an Iranian father and a Japanese mother. Roxana graduated in 1997 from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, with degrees in Communication and French. Ms. Saberi was chosen as Miss North Dakota in 1997 and was among the top ten finalists in Miss America 1998. Roxana has masters in Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University and International Relations from the University of Cambridge. Ms Saberi moved to Iran in 2003 and worked as journalist for US-based Feature Story News (FSN) and BBC and as freelancer.
She was arrested in Iran on January 31, 2009 and was held in its Evin Prison for 101 days under accusations of espionage.[2] Since her release, Saberi wrote a book about her experiences in Iran, Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran.