Mahsa is an urban planner and researcher with a passion for innovation in urban development. During her studies, she specifically worked on creative, smart, and circular cities to understand how different urban systems can be connected to accelerate sustainability transitions. She has experience working with several ICT companies active in smart city projects, and is a One Young World ambassador as well as TEDx speaker of C40Cities.

Mahsa believes in the importance of interdisciplinarity and started her academic journey at the Art University of Tehran, studying Urban Development Engineering. She continued her journey at IAAC in Barcelona with a Master’s in City & Technology, where she dived deeper into urbanism, digital technologies, and data science. She then joined IAAC as a researcher for the H2020 research project Pop-Machina, where she supported the development of links between the maker movement and the circular economy, and served as a teaching assistant in the City and Technology programme. 

Currently, Mahsa is a PhD student at The Business School of Edinburgh Napier University. Her research activity focuses on smart city transitions, with a particular focus on digital twin technology deployment in urban transformation processes.