I serve as Associate Professor of GIScience at the Department of Geomatics at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. I received my PhD in Geomatics and Surveying with a specialization in Geographic Information Science (GIScience) from the CartoGIS Cluster of Ghent University, Belgium.
Interests:
Geoamtics | Methods and Applications
GIScience (focus on location based services)
Computational Spatiotemporal Analytics
- Modeling and Simulation of Dynamic Phenomena
Information Visualization and Geovisualization
- Location and Artificial Intelligence
Smart Cities and Sustainability
My research interests mainly involve developing spatiotemporal analytics, modelling, and visualization techniques to study and understand Movement/Mobility. My research contributes to solving important urban problems where the knowledge and understanding of movement/mobility patterns and trends in a dynamic and complex context are inevitable.
With rapidly increasing large-scale location data (i.e. Big Data), we need to build Artificial Intelligence applications leveraging on such data sources. Examples can be easily found around such as intelligent routing applications, advanced traffic incident and congestion prediction systems or even dynamic pricing tools (e.g. Mobility Service), and drivers behaviour prediction. I aim at developing a broadly applicable analytical framework to unravel how movement patterns of individuals are driven by their behaviour, their environment, and their interactions across multiple spatial and temporal scales within a dynamic built environment.
PhD position within Spatial Mobility Analytics
I am looking for a PhD student with an interest in GIScience and data science approaches for movement analytics & modeling. Please contact me if you are interested in joining the Department of Geomatics at NMBU. Application deadline 15 Aug. https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/207929/phd-position-within-spatial-mobility-analytics
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Publications
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Lecturing
- GMGI102 Introductory GIS
- LAD102 GIS Practical Introduction
- GMGI300 Geographic Database Systems
- GMGI210 Geographic Analysis and Modeling
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Projects & research
External projects
Areas of research
Theme:
- Technology
- Science
Specialities:
- GIScience
Research areas:
- Earth sciences
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Other & CV
Professional Experiences:
- Editorial Board of the McGill Journal of Sustainable Developent Law (since 2019)
- Data Scientist, Urban Innovation Lab at The City of Montreal, 2018–2019.
I Practiced and employed cutting-edge data analysis and visualization techniques (among others, Open Source Python Libraries such as Plotly, Seaborn, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, QGIS, Jupyter Notebook, Leaflet). I worked with big open datasets from the City of Montreal including but not limited to environment, health care, transportation, infrastructures, government, and urban or municipal planning to retrieve meaningful information. I explored the MonTrajet dataset to understand (of citizens taking) different transportation modes used by citizens as an effort towards motivating them for more sustainable transportation use (e.g. integrated transport solutions).
- Geospatial Analyst, The Greater City of Oslo, 2014 – 2016.
- Visiting Scholar, California State University, 2012.
- Visiting Scholar, Iowa University, 2012.
- Visiting Scholar, The Edmund Mach Foundation, 2011.
- Scientific Reviewer:
GIScience, COSIT, the International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Transactions in GIS, Journal of Location Based Services, Information Sciences, Applied Geography, and ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information.
Education:
- Postdoc – The lead Project of Montreal Sustainability Dashboard, Department of Geography, McGill University (2018-2019).
Sustainability and resiliency issues are increasingly at the forefront of discussions and decisions at all levels of municipal governance and decision-making. MSSI (McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative) has risen to the challenge by creating the the Sustainability Dashboard, an inclusive and interactive visual platform designed to track, understand and respond to how the urban environment impacts sustainability. The dashboard responds to the motivation to develop a tool that is democratic, open, relevant, and accessible to the cities community, incorporating the experiences of citizens across socioeconomic statuses to include and represent all of its inhabitants and institutions. The dashboard will increase awareness surrounding issues of sustainability and resilience for citizens and organizations in different Canadian cities, incentivize behavior change, and provide the technical tools and platform to achieve long-term sustainability goals.
- Postdoc – Computational Movement Analysis, Laval University, Canada, (2016-2018).
Within health domain and for aging and people with disabilities, I worked at the Center for Research in Geomatics (CRG) at Laval University to develop a platform, called MobiliSIG, to have a sustainable approach toward mobility of minority people in an urban area. The goal was to make personalized accessibility maps based on the type of disabilities and individual level of confidence to navigate in the city with equal quality as others do have. A comprehensive data collection phase has been done to enrich the city transportation network with properties such as slope, width, surface quality, level of crowd, temperature, precipitation all to recommend the best route from an origin to a destination. Other important criteria such as safety, comfortability, and pleasurability of routes Come next to ensure that the recommended routes suite the profile.
- PhD – Geomatics and Surveying with specialization in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), Ghent University, Belgium (December 2014).
I developed techniques to visualize and analyze movement patterns of moving objects based on Qualitative Trajectory Calculus (QTC), i.e. a qualitative calculus to represent and reason about moving objects. This research involved constructing and segmenting movement trajectories, mining the constructed trajectories to detect movement patterns such as periodic patterns, and then interpreting patterns.
- MSc – Geographic Information Systems Engineering, University of Technology, Tehran, Iran (2008).
Simulation of dispatching rescue team based on the level of destruction to transportation network and buildings after an earthquake by employing agent-based simulation models in RoboCup Rescue Simulation Platform. Pathfinding after earthquake took place with uncertainties related to time, geospatial data, and decision-making process. The results of such simulations in which agents make decision in uncertain environment would help not only emergency teams but also decision makers to think ahead.
- BSc – Geomatics Engineering, Institute of Surveying and Mapping, Tehran, Iran (2005).
Academic Awards and Honours:
- Endeavour Research Fellow. The Australia Awards–Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships - 2018
- Mitacs-Accelerate Fund. Collaborative Industry-University Research Project in Canada, Funded by Leadership of Prof. Dr. Mostafavi - 2016
- National Elite Foundation. Research Fund of the Iranian Ministry of Science and Education for Exceptional Talents -2015
- IGuess. Integrating GIS Use in Education in Several Subjecys | Travel Grant
- MODAP Clinic. FP7/ICT Project MODAP "Mobility, Data Mining, and Privacy | Travel Grant - 2013
- Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM). Awarded by the COST Action IC0903 MOVE "Knowledge Discovery from Moving Objects" 2012
- Special Research Fund (BOF). Ph.D. Scholarship "Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds", Ghent University - 2008




