We all might have a temptation to tell our story at some point in our lives. Perhaps describing my experiences and how they have affected my path would be most exciting to me, and maybe to a couple of people with whom I'll work. Or, probably, the reason that I am writing these couple of paragraphs here is to offload some of the stress. Whatever the reason(s), that might be welcome!

From Industrial Engineering to Agriculutral Economics

I did my undergrad in Industrial Engineering. It was fascinating to have a chance to study a little bit from diverse fields of engineering. But my favorite field was operations research (OR). The idea behind OR is simple.

“How to optimize the decision-making process based on the available resources and known objectives?”

I believe two aspects of OR fascinated me the most. First, a lot of complex math works (which doesn't necessarily mean that I’m good at it!). Second, the freedom to apply optimization algorithms and frameworks to any system and the chance to learn more about diverse systems that comes with it. I was passionate about this field and wanted to pursue a career in this path. However, I had to take care of the bills, given that I had declared independence and had been living separately from my family (even though I was attending college in my hometown, about 20 minutes from my family's residence 😊). To that end, I looked for jobs anywhere and found an internship at a consulting firm in my hometown. My main responsibility was to prepare the first draft of the feasibility studies. I was there for the next two years and became a business analyst.

Being from a town at the crossroads of farms, orchards, and agribusinesses, almost all clients were small and large-scale farmers, processing companies, and transportation companies. Once I became a business analyst, I was responsible for more clients and their various tasks. Market research, marketing channel analysis, cost-benefit analysis, grant writing, and business plan. I became so involved in the agricultural sector that my final college project was a feasibility study for a fruit processing plant. To prepare myself for better positions in this field, I pursued a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics at the University of Tehran. I was hungry for projects and started talking with professors about writing grants and applying for different funding opportunities. There had been some resistance on the basis that I needed to study and finish my coursework before looking for projects. But I was relentless and could persuade some of the professors to allow me to work on research projects.

From Iran to Portugal

That master's program was so rewarding. I worked as a teaching assistant and later as a research assistant on a couple of projects, gaining experience and distinguishing between academic and industry working styles and cultivating professional relationships with researchers, business owners, and policymakers. I also got my big independent contract while I was a second-year master's student. These experiences helped me secure a position as an Economist at a consulting firm. In that position, I was dealing with more projects and leading separate teams. The work was good, and I was planning to branch out and establish my own firm. But the economic sanctions on Iran during Trump’s first administration happened. The sanctions broke the economy, and thousands of jobs were lost. More than anything, sanctions affected people like me who had nothing to do with foreign policy and really wanted to live an ordinary life. I saw a remarkable decline in projects and income within months. Leaving the country became my priority.

I started researching projects abroad and wrote a couple of grant proposals. All were rejected because I didn’t have any links or collaborators. Some were rejected because I didn’t have a “Western” education. So, I started applying for graduate programs in Europe, US, Australia, and Canada. I only received an offer from the University of Aveiro in Portugal, conditional on writing a grant proposal to cover my expenses. It was my first time working outside of my country. I was fortunate to have a great group of people who helped me transition smoothly. However, language barriers (I don't speakPortuguese) and limited funding opportunities pushed me to give up the good weather and friends in Aveiro and look beyond the ocean. 

Transatlantic voyage

I came across an announcement on LinkedIn that two graduate students are needed at the University of New Hampshire. I reached out to Shadi (the professor who was hiring) and finally persuaded him to hire me as a master student. Thus, the transatlantic journey began. It was at Shadi’s lab that I got a chance to revisit my long-lost passion for operations research in two directions. First, I worked with a group of engineers to determine the economic scale of aquaponic production across different systems. Second, I learned to incorporate biological processes into economic decision-making models by building cellular bioeconomic models to optimize farm-level profitability. The idea was to compare different farm management alternatives by integrating the impacts of decisions on system dynamics. I was also a teaching assistant and taught in English for the first time at UNH. 

My plan was to finish the master’s program as soon as possible and pursue a career in industry only if it were that simple! COVID-19 lockdown hit, and everything became online. Many companies laid off workers, and the job market wasn’t looking good. I was nearing the end of my master’s program, and I had to decide whether to return to Iran or pursue a PhD. Thus, the PhD journey began in August of 2021. I applied to four PhD programs and received offers from three. I preferred to continue working with my master’s degree advisor, who had now moved to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. From the beginning, I tried to get involved in as many projects as possible, and my advisor gave me the opportunity to write and work on multiple grants. The good thing about these projects was the opportunity to collaborate with farmers and researchers with diverse backgrounds. I was frequently meeting with plant scientists, Extension educators, and farmers. Partially to understand the system better. It is one thing to read papers and books about the system, and it’s another thing to have a meaningful discussion with a farmer or an expert. I drive about eight hours from Champaign, Illinois, to Traverse City, Michigan, to present and get feedback on my work from other stakeholders. That meeting was rough, but it helped me build professional links. Interdisciplinary collaboration helped me present at interdisciplinary conferences and growers’ meetings and publish in non-field journals. It also helped design an online decision-aid platform for farmers to choose economically sound decisions.

Where I am now

Currently, I’m a PhD candidate on the job market. Despite the tough 2025-2026 job market, I received a couple of campus visits and offers. However, Trump’s second-term immigration policies are major roadblocks to my career path. There are two major examples. First, I received a fly-out for a tenure-track position at the University of Alberta in Canada, which I had to decline due to visa restrictions on Iranians. I could have gone for the campus visit, but the US would not have issued me a visa to enter again, given that Iranian nationals are banned from getting any visa currently. Second, a couple of months later I accepted a tenure-track position at Iowa State University, but they rescinded the offer because the US paused issuing long-term work authorization to Iranian nationals.

I truly beieve that something good will happen. Because I have worked really hard over the past couple of years and tried to out my 100% on the things that I have control over. The rest is out my control.