I have been involved in environmental management and research over the last 20 years. I have worked and supervised research on analysis of human-environment interactions and processes at various spatial or temporal scales with topics varied from ecological response to changes (e.g., climate, land-use) to wildlife habitat to carbon sequestration of forests to long-distance dust transport by employing RS/GIS technologies and linking empirical data with quantitative models.

Since 2000, I have held positions at Forest and Rangeland Organization-Iran (Senior Expert), Desert Research Centre-University of Tehran (Researcher), University of Sydney (PhD Candidate), China Academy of Sciences (International Research Fellow), University of Leeds (Cheney Research Fellow), and University of Tehran (Assistant and Associate Professor, Associate Dean-International, Deputy Dean-Academic Affairs), and (Associate Professor, NUIST-Reading (China).

I received my PhD from the University of Sydney in 2011. I have won several international awards and fellowships and published publications in top tier journals (including in Nature). I have been invited as a reviewer for major global environmental reports (e.g. IPCC, GEO) as well as top scientific journals.

I have been elected or invited for various consultancies and publication assignments for the UN and international organizations. For instance, I have been elected as one of the 14 scientific members for “4 per 1000” initiative to improve soil carbon at the global level since 2016. Also, I was elected in 2012-13 as one of the 12 global members to serve on the Ad Hoc Working Group on Scientific Advice (AGSA) to design from scratch a new mechanism for science-policy communication for the UNCCD. In that regard, a Science-Policy Interface document was published. At the national level, I served as a four-year committee member for formulating a National Action Plan to Combat Desertification and served as Assistant to National Project Director for Carbon Sequestration Project (in cooperation with UNDP and GEF). I also served as an advisor to Internationalization to the Persian Gulf Science and Technology Park (PGSTP) between 2011 and 2013.

I welcome inquiries from potential research students and also from scientific groups for joint projects and publications.