I completed my bachelor’s degree in biotechnology at the University of Tehran where I worked on transferring an orthogonal replication system between yeast species. I then joined Dr. Chang Liu’s lab at the University of California, Irvine, for my graduate degree, where I developed expertise in the fields of directed evolution and synthetic biology. I contributed to the development of ORACLE, a platform for continuous directed evolution of gene libraries using orthogonal replication. At GBI, I am interested in applying library evolution to explore protein sequence space and discover proteins with useful or novel functions. 

In my free time, I enjoy listening to music, working out, and doing yoga. My interest in biology started back in high school, when I participated in the Biology Olympiad. I was fortunate to represent my country at the 2019 International Biology Olympiad in Hungary, where I received a silver medal.