4/2016 – 2/2020 – PhD in Human Geography with magna cum laude (1.0)
Dissertation’s title: Surveillance as Spatial Injustice: The Case of Iran
Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University
Recipient of Hans-Böckler Foundation of German Trade Unions’ scholarship

1/2019 – 10/2019 – Baden-Württemberg Certificate for Teaching and Learning at University Level
State of Baden-Württemberg Centre for Teaching and Learning, Heidelberg

9/2010 – 11/2011 – MSc Gender Research with Merit
London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE)
Recipient of PJD Wiles Scholarship

9/2003 – 7/2008 – B.A. Social Research with GPA 17.28/20
Allmeh Tabatabaie University, Tehran

9/2002 – 7/2003 – Journalism Diploma with GPA 16.95/20
Centre for Media Research and Studies, Tehran

Experience > Academic
04/2022- ongoing – Assistant Professor in Public Administration and Digital Transformation
University of Twente, Faculty of Behavioural, Management & Social Sciences

10/2024-09/2027 – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Global Fellow
Project e-Authopia: Authoritarian Smart Cities, University of Ottawa and University of Twente

01/2023- ongoing – Vertrauensdozentin, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung
Trusted Member of Faculty in the German Foundation of Trade Unions

09/2022- ongoing – Co-Director of International Surveillance Studies Network

10/2019- ongoing – Founder and Director of Surveillance in the Majority World Network

09/2023-ongoing – Affiliated Fellow at the University of Ottawa
Centre for Law, Technology & SocietyCentre for International Policy Studies

04/2024- ongoing – Advisory Board Member of the Horizon Europe-funded project GATHERINGS
Ten diverse partners ranging from Research Institutions and Civil Society Organisations to Law Enforcement Agencies spread across Europe

2024-2027 – Associate Editor and Member of Editorial Board
Surveillance & Society Journal

2024-2027 – Associate Editor and Member of Editorial Board
Information Technology for Development Journal

02/2024-02/2028 – Representative of Behavioural, Management & Social Sciences Faculty
Ethics Committee, Faculty of Geo-Information Science & Earth Observation, University of Twente

2022-2023 – Organising member, research network “Emancipatory Technology Studies: Between Social and Technical Transformations (Emanzipatorische Technikforschung: Verhältnisse zwischen technischem & gesellschaftlichem Wandel), German Research Foundation (DFG)

12/2019-04/2022 – Academic Staff and Postdoctoral Research Associate
University of Münster, Political Geography Working Group

2021- 2024 – Digital Editor and Member of Editorial Board
Surveillance & Society Journal

2021- 2024 – Digital Editor and Member of Editorial Board
Territory, Politics, Governance Journal

3/2019 – 11/2019 – Scientific Assistant
Heidelberg Center for American Studies

9/2014 – 7/2015 – Lecturer, Sociology of Gender and Sexuality
Science & Culture University, Teheran

10/- 12/2011 – Research Assistant
SOAS University, London, Chair of Prof. Sreberny
Book project: Persian Service: The BBC and British Interests in Iran

2007 – 2008 – Research Assistant
University of Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran
Research project: Rapid Situation Assessment of Female Sex Workers in Tehran

2004 – 2005 – Research Assistant
University of Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Tehran
Research project: Analysis and Evaluation of Drug Demand Reduction Management

Experience > Non-Academic

11/22- 02/23 – Consultant for the Guide on Digitally-Mediated Assemblies
European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stitching

8/2015 – 3/2016 – Communication & Community Outreach Consultant
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Tehran

8/2011 – 2/2014 – Digital Communication Manager
British Council HQ, London

1/2009 – 8/2010 – Media Officer
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Tehran

1/2008 – 1/2009 – Political Analyst
British Embassy, Tehran

9/2001 – 9/2016 – Freelance Journalist and Stringer
New York Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ABC News, Associated Press, etc.

Voluntary Work
▪️ Deputy Member of the Board, Hansaforum, since November 2020
Hansaforum is a citizens’ initiative to codetermine the organisation of Hansa neighbourhood in the city of Münster, Germany

▪ Active Engagement in One-Million-Signature Campaign, 2006-9
A feminist movement against unjust laws against women in Iran

▪ Creative Writing Teacher for Child Labourers, 2003
Society for Protection of The Rights of Children, Tehran

For public talks and interviews, please see media.

Conference Organisation

Invited Talks and Panel Chairing:

  • Keynote Speaker: Smart Cities as Safe Cities Conference, CEThicS: Interdisciplinary Research Center for Surveillance Technologies and Practices. Université Catholique de Lille, 11.10.2024.
  • Invited contributor at the workshop Fundamental interdisciplinary questions between CS and SSH, organised by SocialX group at the Lorentz Center, Leiden University, 24-28.06.2024.
  • Panel chair: Critical Information and Communication Technology for Development and Surveillance Studies, the 10th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Ljubljana University, Slovenia, 30.05.2024.
  • Invited panellist at the roundtable Authoritarian surveillance in illiberal times, SOS4Democracy consortium (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Institute of Criminology in Ljubljana), Slovene Ethnographical Museum, Ljubljana, 28.05.2024.
  • Contributing Speaker: Digital Development Dilemma, Digital Repression Workshop, Hertie School of Governance, 22-24.05.2024.
  • Contributing Speaker: Authoritarian Smart City, European Digital Democracy network’s first conference, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 9-11.04.2024.
  • Invited contributor: at the workshop Police Violence, Inter­disciplinary Research Center Transformations of Political Violence: University of Marbourg, 25-26.01.2024.
  • Invited lecture: Why shutting down the internet is gender discrimination?: the case of Iran, Feminist Legal Studies, Queen’s University, Canada, 24.11.2023 [Online].
  • Invited lecture: The Digital Development Dilemma: Technology-Enabled Authoritarianism, Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa, 30.10.2023.
  • Invited lecture (with Prof. David Murakami Wood): Authoritarian Smart Cities: Platforms, Governance and Total Urban Surveillance, Centre for Law, Technology & Society, University of Ottawa, 04.10.2023.
  • Keynote Speaker: Surveillance and Democracy in the Global South, Internet Lab’s Congress on Fundamental Rights and Criminal Procedure in the Digital Age, University of São Paulo [online], 29.08.2023.
  • Panel Organiser & member: Surveillance embedded in telecommunication and internet infrastructures: how to make infrastructural surveillance visible? RightsCon 2023 Costa Rica (online), 08.06.2023. [with Crofton Black, Lighthouse Reports]
  • Invited contributor: at the workshop Understanding and Combating Online Manipulation: Setting an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda, Digital Life Initiative: Cornell Tech, New York, May 11.-12.05.2023.
  • Invited contributor: Political Economy of Data: A Global South Perspective, at the workshop Decolonized Narratives in Political Economy: Alternative Perspectives from the Global South, Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study and University of Hamburg, 28.-29.03.2023.
  • Invited panellist at the panel Circulations of STS research(ers) and good academic research practice and working conditions, STS-hub.de 2023 conference, the Human Technology Center, Aachen, 15.03.2023.
  • Invited panellist to the Masterclass on Geo Ethics: Ethical issues underlining research with geospatial data, ITC, University of Twente, 08.03.2023.
  • Invited contributor to the workshop Urban Digital Infrastructures and Privilege, Design Lab, University of Twente, 08.12.2022.
  • Invited lecture, Digital Sovereignty: The Influence of Chinese Digital Governance Discourse on IranPolitical geography in the age of digital media workshop, University of Freiburg, 23/-24/9/2022.
  • Invited lecture, Bodies that Betray: Biometric Data & EU’s Corporeal BordersHidden layers: AI and Design summer school, Köln International School of Design, 22/07/2022.
  • Invited lecture, Die verratenden Körper: EU Grenzkontrolle durch biometrische DatensammlungHumangeographisches Kolloquium, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, 29/06/2022.
  • Invited panellist, Opening the Black Box of EU’s Migration Data Banks.  at the conference ‘Border Regimes in the Age of Technoscience,’ International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, 23/-24/06/2022.
  • Panel chair, Surveillance Studies & the Global South,the 9th biennial Surveillance & Society conference of the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN), Erasmus University Rotterdam, 02/06/2022.
  • Invited panellist at the workshop ‘Between controversy and struggle: methodological interventions,’ Amsterdam Centre on European Studies (ACES), 31/05/2022
  • Panel chair, Feminist and Queer Approaches to Technological Resistance in the Global South,  IFIP 9.4 conference (the Working Group 9.4 of the International Federation for Information Processing), virtual, 26/05/2022
  • Invited panellist, Opening the Black Box of EU’s Migration Data Banks.  for the concluding round table “Futures of Intelligence Oversight”, Intelligence, surveillance, and oversight: tracing connections and contestations Conference, King’s College London, 27.01.2022.
  • Guest lecture, Contestation over Data from the Global South: An Activist-Academic Perspective.  at Southern Critical Data Studies ECR Network, University of Oxford, School of Geography and the Environment, St John’s College, 15.09.2021.
  • Invited Lecture, Digitale Technologien und die Festigung der autoritären Herrschaft: Ein iranisches Fallbeispiel, Lecture for the German PhD Prize 2021 (nominated in social science category), Körber Stiftung, Berlin, 29.06.2021
  • Invited Lecture, Surveillance as Spatial Injustice, Invited lecture for the VUB Research Chair in Surveillance Studies’ Seminars, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium, 17.06.2021.
  • Invited panellist, Self-harm as resistance against biometric data gathering in the EU’s migration system, Digital Identity During Times of Crisis’ Workshop, Turing Institute, London, 24.05.2021.
  • Invited panellist,Authoritarian Surveillance: A Corona Test, The Digital State. Technology and Government in Pandemic Times, the Centre for Digital Culture, the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, GB, 14.05.2021.
  • Invited Lecture, Autoritärer Wandel: Wird die Corona-Krise die Überwachungspolitik ändern? Das humangeographische Kolloquium, Universität Jena, 30.06.2020.
  • Invited panellist for the Panel: Anonymity, Privacy, Transparency, Surveillance. Conference & Exhibition: A = Anonym, Kampnagel, Hamburg, 25.10.2018.

Conference Presentations

  • Follow the Thing: Situating Data vs. its Universalisation, Data Power conference [online], 04.09.2024.
  • (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood) Authoritarian Smart Cities and Total Urban Surveillance. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Royal Geographical Society, London, UK, 28.08.2024.
  • The birth of code/body: an autoethnography of the body at EU borders, east + 4s, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17.07.2024.
  • The Appropriation of Telegram by Iran and Russia: From Restriction to Manipulation, the 10th biennial Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) / Surveillance & Society Conference, Ljubljana University, Slovenia, 29.05.2024.
  • (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood) Authoritarian Smart Cities and Total Urban Surveillance. SSN Oregon 2023, University of Oregon, Eugene, USA, 13.10.2023.
  • Authoritarian Smart Cities: Emerging Technologies and Societal Transformations Conference, University of Twente, Netherlands, 21.09.2023
  • The politics of justice in the “Data Justice” discourse. Data Justice 2023 Conference, Cardiff, UK, 19-20.06.2023.
  • Authoritarian Smart Cities: Platforms, Governance and Total Urban Surveillance, Online, PlatGov Conference, 04.04.2023. (with Prof Dr David Murakami Wood, University of Ottawa)
  • Authoritarian Smart City: A Research Agenda, Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2023 confernce, Denver & online, 23.03.2023.
  • Smart Authoritarian City: A Spatial|Data Justice Approach, Netherlands Institute of Governance (NIG) Conference, Tilburg University, 13.10.2022.
  • Automation of urban policing: Spatial|Data Justice and women’s resistance against compulsory Hijab in Iran, Beyond Smart Cities, Malmö University, 17.06.2022.
  • The Code-Body at the EU’s Digital Corporeal Borders, the 9th biennial Surveillance & Society conference of the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN), Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3.06.2022.
  • Biometric Data Banks and EU’s Corporeal Borders. American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting (virtual), New York, 26.02.2022.
  • Substitutional Educational Platforms in the ECO Countries during COVID-19 Pandemic. II Digital Geographies Conference (Virtual): Critical perspectives on the platform economy, Online, .
  • Die verratenden Körper: EU Grenzkontrolle durch biometrische Datensammlung. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Online, 08.10.2021.
  • Digitale Schulplattformen in den ECO-Ländern während der COVID-19-Pandemie: Widerstandsfähigkeit und ICT4D. Deutscher Kongress für Geographie, Online, 08.10.2021.
  • Datafied Code-Body, Borders and EU’s migration system. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021, Royal Geographical Society, London (online), 02.09.2021.
  • Epistemic Consequences of Following Data from the Global South. RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021, Royal Geographical Society, London (online), 01.09.2021.
  • Epistemic Consequences of Following Data from the Global South. 5th Digital Geographies Research Group Annual Symposium: Where next for Digital Geographies? Pathways and prospects, Online, 14.07.2021.
  • A Resilient ICT4D Approach to ECO Countries’ Education Response during COVID-19 Pandemic. IFIP 9.4 Virtual Conference 2021: Resilient ICT4D, IFIP’s Working Group on the Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development 26.05.2021.
  • Bodies that Betray: EU’s Corporeal Borders. TILTing Perspectives 2021: Regulating in Times of Crisis, Tilburg University, Online, 21.05.2021.
  • Bodies that Betray: EU’s Corporeal Borders. Geomedia 2021: Off the Grid, Universität Siegen, Online, 07.05.2021.
  • Global Crisis, Local Platform: A Qualitative Analysis of Iran’s Online Educational Platform. First Annual Conference of the Platform Governance Research Network, Online, 24.3.2021.
  • Cyber-Surveillance as Spatial Injustice: The Case Study of Iran. Neue Kulturgeographie: Technocultures und Technoscapes, Bonn, Germany, 31.01.2020.
  • Intelligent Filtering as Spatial|Data Injustice: The Case of Iran. IFIP Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management, Brugg/Windisch, Switzerland, 20.08.2019.
  • Spatial|Data Justice: Mapping and Digitised Strolling Against Moral Police in Iran. “Urban Data, Inequality and Justice in the Global South” International Workshop, Manchester, GB, 14.06.2019.
  • Contentious spaces: Resistance assemblages against moral police surveillance in Iran. 8th International Conference of Critical Geography, Athens, Greece, 21.04.2019.
  • Follow the Thing: Data. VII. Interdisziplinärer Workshop: Privacy, Datenschutz & Surveillance, Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany, 11.12.2018.
  • Travelogue of Surveillance Technologies: Touring Iranian Users’ Data with no Visa. Surveillance Studies Network – 8th Biennial Conference, Aarhus, Denmark, 08.06.2018.
  • Presenting the PhD Project, IRS Spring Academy 2018, “Investigating Space(s): Current Theoretical and Methodological Approaches: Virtuality and Socio-Materiality”, Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung, 25.05.2018, Erkner, Germany.
  • Political Spirituality and the Subject of Resistance. Neue Kulturgeographie: Materie, Materialien, Methoden, Freiburg, Germany, 27.01.2018.
  • A Critical Study of Space: The Case of Iran’s Surveillance of Public and Digital Spaces. Geomedia 2017: Spaces of the In-Between, Karlstad, Sweden, 10.05.2017.
  • Presenting the PhD Project, PhD students’ colloquium with Prof. Dr. Derek Gregory (British Columbia University), Heidelberg, Germany, 26.4.2017.
  • Public harassment in Tehran: Gender performativity, shame, respectability and honour. INSEP2015 Conference: Violence, Representations and Sexuality, Ghent, Belgium, 14.07.2015.

 

Academic Awards

Journalism

  • National Press Prize for Young Talents, Iran, 1998
  • Roshd National Press Prize for Journalists, Iran, 2003
  • National Press Prize for Reporters, Iran, 2003

Scholarships

  • Co-funding for a post-doc position from Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Germany 2020
  • PhD Scholarship, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Germany, 2016-2019
  • PJD Wiles Scholarship for master’s studies, UK, 2010-11