Who Is Professor Shauhin Davari? Meet the ‘Survivor’ Season 48 Contestant Making a Splash

After first falling short as an alternate on Survivor, Shauhin Davari is back for his redemption arc on season 48. The California native is set to make a name for himself in the competition and fans are curious about the latest castaway to join the show.

Who Is ‘Survivor’ Season 48 Star Shauhin Davari?

Shauhin is a 37-year-old speech and debate coach from Costa Mesa, California. He was once a lawyer but shifted to teaching after discovering his passion for leading night classes.

Shauhin Davari is Inspired By ‘Survivor’ Star Jonathan Penner

Shauhin takes inspiration from Survivor alum Jonathan Penner, calling himself “Penner with a new era twist.”

Jonathan was known for his entertaining confessionals and blunt assessments, and Shauhin said they have a similar tendency: “When given any opportunity to drive, he drives.”

“And even in opportunities where he didn’t have an opportunity to drive, he couldn’t help himself. He had to drive anyway. I do that sometimes. I’m a ‘logic bully.’ I know the right call. Sometimes it just drives me nuts,” he told Parade in an interview published on February 7, 2025. “The person won’t agree, and what that ends up leading to is a soft agreement, which is someone being like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure,’ and then turning around and being like, ‘Dude, screw this guy. I’m out of here.’ And that is definitely what happened to him as well. And I need to avoid that fate by being more Socratic, asking people to get them there, instead of telling people to get them there.”

Shauhin Davari Is Connected to Kidnapping Hoaxer Sherri Papini

In 2022, Shauhin revealed he dated infamous kidnapping hoaxer Sherri Papini when he was 15 years old, and she was a 20-year-old youth counselor.

“In retrospect, sure, tons of red flags,” he told Inside Edition. “That she was a counselor that was going out with a 15-year-old.”

Shauhin also said Sherri was a “compulsive liar,” explaining, “She would not talk to you for three or four days, and then all of a sudden there’d be some fantastical story about what happened.”

He admitted he was skeptical when he learned that Sherri was allegedly kidnapped in November 2016. “I was like, there’s no way. She’s fine. I promise you she’s fine. There’s just no chance that she got kidnapped,” he admitted.

Sherri reportedly disappeared while out on a job a mile away from her Redding, California, neighborhood. She was located three weeks later on Thanksgiving on the side of County Road 17 near Interstate 5 in Yolo County after she was reportedly freed by her alleged captors. She was bruised and branded.

She claimed that she was taken by two Hispanic women who hid their faces from her during the duration of her alleged kidnapping. She also claimed she was locked in a closet with a bucket filled with kitty litter as a toilet with her wrists chained.

Sherri, who received over $30,000 from the California Victim Compensation Board between 2017 and 2021, was arrested in March 2022 for allegedly staging her own abduction. She later accepted a plea deal, admitting to the hoax and pleaded guilty to mail fraud and making false statements. As a result, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $300,000 fine. Sherri was released from prison in August 2023.