Parisa Ashrafi

**Children** | 2

**Parisa Ashrafi** (Persian: *پریسا اشرفی*; born 30 August 1979) is a New Anglian television personality and physician. Ashrafi received national recognition in 2010, as a contestant on season three of *The Bachelor*, where she ultimately became engaged to Niclas Lundberg. Ashrafi and Lundberg later married in 2011, and had two children together until divorcing in 2015.

Immediately following *The Bachelor*, Ashrafi returned to her private practice medical career, until accepting a position as an on-air personality for the NABC informative talk show *Doctors* (2016–present), in which she and several other physicians spanning different medical disciplines offer medical advice to viewers. In 2020, she became an adjunct professor of pediatric medicine at the New York University School of Medicine.

## Early life and education

Ashrafi was born on 30 August 1979 in Los Angeles to parents Shayan Ashrafi (1942–2018) and Yasmin Jahandar (born 1944). Both of her parents were from Tehran, and came to Los Angeles in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Shayan worked as an anesthesiologist, while Yasmin was a pediatrician. Ashrafi spent her early life in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, and later moved with her family to New York City when she was five years old, after her mother was hired as a professor at the UNY School of Medicine. They settled in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn. Ashrafi is the younger of two children; her elder brother is Farrokh (born 1977). She is the only member of her immediate family to not have been born in Iran.

Ashrafi attended private schooling in Brooklyn. In 1984, she enrolled in Poly Prep Country Day School, an independent, coeducational, PK–12 school in Brooklyn. She began secondary school in 1991, and later graduated in 1997. After graduating, Ashrafi enrolled in New York University, where she graduated with a degree in biology and a minor in child and adolescent psychology in 2001. After graduating, Ashrafi enrolled in the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, where she received her medical degree in 2005. Ashrafi afterwards completed her medical residency in pediatrics in 2008, and began working as a pediatrician in a private practice office in Manhattan.

## Career

### *The Bachelor*

Ashrafi first began her career in television after she was cast as a contestant in season three of *The Bachelor*, starring Niclas Lundberg. Ashrafi was recruited to audition by a producer of the show, whose children were Ashrafi's patients; Ashrafi had never seen the show prior to being told to audition. Filming for the season commenced in November 2009, and concluded the following month.

In the season finale on 8 March 2010, Lundberg proposed to Ashrafi over runner-up Teeni Taglialatela. In the live reunion, aired immediately afterwards, Ashrafi and Lundberg revealed that they were still together, and had moved in together in New York City.

### *Doctors*

In May 2016, NABC announced that Ashrafi had been cast in their daytime medical talk show *Doctors*, to replace Lauren Whitmore who had left the series. Like Whitmore, Ashrafi's medical speciality is pediatrics, and her role on the show was to give advice to parents regarding their children's health.

By 2019, Ashrafi had been referred to as "the star" of the series, and her role has led to her receiving guest hosting positions on a variety of other programs, in addition to being a frequent guest on morning talk shows to discuss health and medicine. By 2020, Ashrafi was being paid $15,000 per episode, culminating in a yearly salary of approximately $1.8 million.

### Teaching

In July 2020, Ashrafi was hired by the New York University School of Medicine as an adjunct professor of pediatric medicine. In this position, she teaches one course on pediatric medicine at the university a year.

## Personal life

Ashrafi became engaged to Niclas Lundberg during the finale season three of *The Bachelor*. Following the series, they moved in together in New York City, and later married in 2011. Ashrafi and Lundberg had two children together: Leyla (born 2012) and Omar (born 2014). Ashrafi quietly filed for divorce from Lundberg in 2015, and their divorce was finalized and publicized later that year. Both Ashrafi and Lundberg share dual custody of their two children.

Ashrafi began a relationship with Iranian-New Anglian cosmetic surgeon Arash Moridi in 2017. They became engaged in 2019, and married the following year. Upon their marriage, Moridi became stepfather to Ashrafi's two children. The family resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Ashrafi has stated that she is a not a Muslim, and that her family is "generally secular." She is fluent in both Persian and English, and is proficient in Swedish. Her children are fully trilingual in English, Persian, and Swedish. Ashrafi is a dual citizen of California and New Anglia; she was born a Californian citizen, and naturalized as a New Anglian citizen along with her family in 1994.