I obtained my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the highly competitive “consecutive BS-PhD program in Biotechnology” from the University of Tehran, Iran. My research focus there was biomedical engineering, and one of my projects involved developing bone regenerative grafts from human-derived tissues. In 2023, I joined the BME PhD program at Arizona State University and conducted research on developing cancer models on microfluidic chips to study the immune-tumor microenvironment for Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Following my newly developed interest in structural biology and protein-protein interactions, in summer 2024, I transferred to the PhD program in Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (BMEBT) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, under the supervision of Dr. Xiaofei Jia. My dissertation work here focuses on investigating how the HIV-1 accessory proteins induce immune evasion through downmodulation of key surface proteins, such as CD4 and MHC-I. My hobbies outside of research are playing tennis, hanging out with friends, watching movies and shows (a big old fan of GOT and HOD), and painting.