2015

In 2009, I obtained a BSc in Zoology from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, my home city. I travelled to Sweden in 2011 to pursue a MSc in Animal Ecology at Lund University and graduated in December 2013. My thesis focused on the application of non-invasive sampling of faecal-DNA in conservation monitoring of large carnivores in the Iranian Caucasus. I conducted the first abundance estimation of a brown bear population in Iran, and a pilot survey of Persian leopards in some key reserves. Since 2008 I have collaborated with the Iranian Cheetah Society, an Iranian NGO, as a research associate.

I am interested in ecology of large carnivores on human-altered landscapes, and translating my findings to informed conservation actions.

I hope attending the Postgraduate Diploma will equip me with a higher level of analytical and practical skills to contribute to wildlife ecology and conservation with a focus on large carnivores.

October 2020 Update

I attended the WildCRU’s Postgraduate Diploma Course in 2015 working on scenarios of population-level landscape connectivity for the Asiatic cheetah and habitat suitability for the Pallas’s cat in Iran. Most of my previous work has been centered on surveying and monitoring of large carnivores in Iran using non-invasive research methods including camera trapping, DNA sampling, and key informant interviews. Since 2019, I have been a PhD research fellow at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences working on monitoring of Scandinavian large carnivores.