Rahnavard served as the Chancellor of Alzahra University in Tehran from 1998 to 2006, and as a Political Adviser to the former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Rahnavard was the first Iranian woman appointed as a chancellor of a university since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. She was nominated to this post by former Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mostafa Moin. After the election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 and the purging of reformist officials from the government, Rahnavard was removed (or resigned) from her position as the Chancellor of Al-zahra University in 2006, replaced by Mahboubeh Mobasheri.