If you are interested in serving on the IAAP Scholarship Committee, please email Dr. Hooshmand at hooshmand_so[at]yahoo.com.
Dr. Azari is an Associate Professor and the founding director of RE2 Lab at the Penn State Department of Architecture. He is also a co-funded faculty at the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment. Prior to Penn State, Dr. Azari served as an assistant professor (2017-2020) and the interim director (2018-2019) of the Architecture Ph.D. program at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, and an assistant professor (2013-2017) at the University of Texas-San Antonio. Dr. Azari’s research focuses on life cycle environmental impacts of built environments, innovative construction materials for energy production and carbon sequestration, and building energy and carbon efficiency. Azari is a recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ Upjohn Research Grant in 2019 and 2020, and faculty sponsor to winning entries to ACSA+AIA COTE Top Ten competitions in 2016 and 2017. In 2019, Azari was recognized as a ‘Researcher to Know’ by the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition. In 2018, Azari co-edited the Energy and Buildings’ Special Issue on Embodied Energy and Carbon Efficiency. Azari’s research has been widely published in various journal venues such as Energy and Buildings and Building and Environment. Dr. Azari holds a Ph.D. in Built Environment from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Dehzangi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University. Before joining Rutgers, Dr. Dehzangi served as an assistant professor and MS in Bioinformatics program director at the Department of Computer Science at Morgan State University (MSU), Baltimore, MD, USA. Before joining MSU, he was a Postdoctoral research scholar at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa (UIOWA), Iowa City, IA, USA. Dr. Dehzangi received his Ph.D. in computer science (majoring in Machine Learning, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology) from Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, his master’s degree in computer science and information technology from MultiMedia University (Cyberjaya, Malaysia), and bachelor’s degree in computer science and Engineering (CSE) from Shiraz University (Shiraz, Iran). His research is focused on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and bioinformatics & computational biology in general.
Dr. Neda Forouzani is a research faculty at the University of Maryland. She received her Ph.D. in physics from Shiraz University on quantum entanglement in photonic systems. She then moved to the US to join the Department of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis as a postdoctoral fellow working on superconductivity and magnetism under extreme conditions. She later switched her research field to quantum measurement with experiments on superconducting circuits. Dr. Forouzani joined UMD’s Department of Physics in 2016 and is currently pursuing her research on designing quantum devices, cryogenic microwave measurement, and material defects for quantum computing applications. Dr. Forouzani has published over 20 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings and served as a referee for the American Physical Society journals. She is also a member of the scientific review committee of the Iranian American Physicist Network Group and Association for Women in Science.
Dr. Somayeh Hooshmand is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities/NIH, working in the lab of Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable. Her research focuses on genetics and health disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations. She obtained her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of Putra Malaysia after completing her master’s degree in genetic engineering. While her research focused on breast cancer metastasis, she also developed a passion for driving positive change and addressing issues such as gender equality, women’s empowerment, health disparities, healthcare access for vulnerable populations, and genetics-related health issues. Driven by this passion, Dr. Hooshmand pursued a second Ph.D. in public administration and public policy, with a specific focus on health outcomes and health policy, at Old Dominion University, Virginia.
Dr. Hooshmand has actively contributed to various boards and committees throughout her career. She co-chairs the NIH Science Policy Discussion Group (SPDG), which brings together fellows with a shared interest in understanding the intersection of scientific research and legislative policy. Additionally, she serves as the Program Committee Co-Chair of Women in Bio (WIB) – Capital Region to promote the careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship of women in the life sciences. Moreover, she holds the position of Chair for the IAAP Scholarship Committee, assuming responsibility for the overall coordination and direction of the scholarship program.
Professor Jamshidi is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at The George Washington University. She is a graphic designer and art director with an MA in visual communication from the Royal College of Art. She is a research-based designer with a practice that spans between the realms of archives and special collections, museums, and education, with an editorial design approach.
Dr. Mehrnoosh Sameki serves as a Product Lead at Microsoft, where she is responsible for overseeing product initiatives that focus on responsible Artificial Intelligence and machine learning model understanding tools, such as interpretability, fairness, reliability, and decision-making, within the Open Source and Azure Machine Learning platforms. Mehrnoosh has co-founded various ethical AI open-source repositories, including Fairlearn, Error Analysis, Responsible-AI-Toolbox, and InterpretML. In addition, she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Boston University, where she teaches courses on responsible AI and has contributed to the curriculum development and online lectures for the “Break Through Tech” initiative, aimed at encouraging underrepresented women to pursue data science degrees and careers. Before her current role at Microsoft, Mehrnoosh worked as a Data Scientist in the retail industry, using data science and machine learning to enhance customers’ personalized shopping experiences. Mehrnoosh holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Boston University.
Dr. Mehdi Farokhnia is a physician-scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program. He received his Medical Degree from Tehran University and a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. He also completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the NIH Clinical Center, in a joint laboratory of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Mehdi’s research is focused on understanding the neurobiology of addictive behaviors and identifying novel therapeutic targets for alcohol and other substance use disorders. He uses a combination of behavioral, pharmacological, genetic, and neuroimaging methods, as well as novel human laboratory and epidemiological methods to facilitate the translation between preclinical, clinical, and population-based research, with a particular focus on behavioral pharmacology and addiction neuroscience.
Dr. Hamidi is a safety physician with extensive clinical experience, research, and medical education who has served in the clinic, academia, and industry. His fields of interest and expertise include pharmacovigilance and drug development especially in targeted therapy using Immuno-Oncology medicines, Antibody-Drug Conjugates, as well as novel radioactive agents. Dr. Hamidi received his MD degree from Azad University, Tabriz, Iran.
Dr. Farid Aalisafaei
Dr. Alisafaei is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Dr. Alisafaei came to NJIT from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an NIH-T32 (National Institute of Health) postdoctoral fellow and member of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Engineering Mechanobiology. His lab develops integrated computational and experimental tools to understand and harness the role of mechanics in physiological processes such as wound healing and stem cell migration as well as in pathological processes such as fibrosis and cancer progression.
Dr. Yazdani is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of the Sustainable Infrastructure, Geotechnics, and Materials (SIGMa) Lab at Howard University, Washington, DC. He specializes in geotechnical engineering, experimental and computational materials science, risk and reliability analysis, machine learning, and evolutionary optimization. His interdisciplinary research centers on enhancing the sustainability and climate resilience of civil infrastructure. Dr. Yazdani has authored/co-authored over 50 publications in books, peer-reviewed journals, and conference proceedings. He also has over 10 years of experience in teaching civil and materials engineering courses. Dr. Yazdani is a member of several organizations including the American Society of Civil Engineers, Deep Foundations Institute (DFI – Honorary Member), and North American Geosynthetics Society, and the recipient of several awards including the AFOSR DURIP award, the Best Faculty Awards of the Howard University ASCE Student Chapter in 2017 and 2019 and the DFI Best Student Paper Award in 2013.
Dr. Yazdani received his BSc and MSc in civil/geotechnical engineering from the University of Kerman, Iran, and his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 2015.