B.Sc. Microbiology, Islamic Azad University of Medical Sciences, Tehran
M.Sc. Microbiology, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

I’ve always been curious about the invisible side of nature — how organisms too small to see can have such a big impact on the world around us. That curiosity led me to study microbiology in Tehran, and after graduating, I worked as a microbiologist in diagnostic labs for over two years, analyzing human samples and identifying infection-causing bacteria.
At some point, I started wondering what these same organisms were doing outside of clinics and hospitals — in rivers, in soil, and in the ocean.

That question eventually brought me to Oldenburg for my Master’s in Microbiology. Right now, I’m working on optimizing flow cytometry protocols to analyze microbial samples from the Atlantic Ocean — groundwork I’ll carry into my thesis, where I’ll use these protocols to characterize and quantify the microbial populations living in these waters.

Moving from clinical to marine microbiology has been a bigger shift than I expected, but it feels like the same curiosity I’ve always had, just in a much bigger and wilder setting.

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