Kaveh Majlesi is the Program Manager for the HAND Research Foundation. Previously, he has worked as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and economic analyst in the OC&C Strategy Consultants. He has also been consultant to some national projects in Iran.

He is an economics PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a Masters of Public Administration/International Development (MPA/ID) degree from Harvard Kennedy School. MPA/ID program is an economics-centered, multi-disciplinary program, combining rigorous training in analytical and quantitative methods with an emphasis on policy and practice and is designed to prepare the next generation of leaders in international development. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree from Sharif University of Technology in Electrical Engineering.

Amir Kermani was awarded his Msc of Economics from London School of Economics and currently is a PhD student in Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Before joining LSE, Amir did political economy research on natural resource curse and studied the effect of oil revenue ownership on human welfare and government performance inside oil exporting countries. He had also been active in establishing a microfinance institution in Iran. He is currently working on relations between markets distortions, financial institutions and technology diffusion.

Kowsar Yousefi is a PhD student in economics at University of Texas at Austin. Kowsar was awarded the 2007 Bita Daryabari Scholarship for Women in Economics and has earned an M.A in Economics and a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering and Petroleum Engineering from Sharif University of Technology.

Maryam Farboodi is an economics PhD student at the University of Chicago. She holds a Masters of Economics degree from University of Texas at Austin, and a Masters of Computer Science from University of Maryland at College Park.

Before joining University of Chicago, Maryam did theoretical research on applications of mechanism design in sponsored search auctions, and she was awarded the best second year paper for her work in optimal auctioneer strategies in position auctions. She is currently working on optimal online auction mechanisms which are robust to perturbations in consumer search behavior. She also holds a Bachelor's degree from Sharif University of Technology in Computer Engineering.

Mr. Shahidi earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in electrical engineering and a Master of Science degree in economics from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. He has also just completed a Master of Science in economics at LSE, where he was awarded a PJD Wiles Scholarship, and passed with distinction.

Mohammad Moravvej, who ranked 9th in his nationwide university entrance exam, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and petroleum engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, and a Master of Science in petroleum engineering from Stanford University. His master's thesis was on maximizing NPV and production efficiency of petroleum fields by proposing optimal production scenarios using continuous Genetic Algorithms. He is interested in modeling the energy market and designing policies that ensure energy sustainability and environmental protection. His other areas of interest include applied microeconomics, industrial organization, and game theory.

Rasool Zandvakil is a PhD student in economics at University of Chicago. Rasool was awarded the 2009 HAND Research Foundation Scholarship and has earned an M.A from University of British Columbia in Economics and a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology.

Reza Salehnejad received his MSc and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

He has taught Economics at Cambridge and City University. He has also written a book on Rationality, Bounded Rationality and Microfoundations, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan (2006).

Reza is a Lecturer in Economics at the Manchester Business School , the University of Manchester, UK.

Seyed Jalil Kazemitabar, who has a bachelors degree in mathematics, has won numerous national and international mathematics competitions. He is the recipeint of the 2010 HAND Research Foundation Scholarship and is currently a PhD student at UC Berkeley. His economic areas of interest include econometrics and law and economics.

Seyed Ali Madanizadeh has been a PHD student of Economics at University of Chicago since 2007. His interests are in Macro Economics and International Trade. He was the first recipient of the HAND Research Foundation Fellowship. He earned a Master of Science in Computational Mathematics from Stanford University (2007) and finished his Bachelor and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering in Sharif University in 2005.

Seyed Ali was awarded the Bronze Medal from the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2000 (South Korea) and the Third Prize of the International Mathematical Competition of University students in 2002 (Poland).

Amirreza is a PhD student in economics at Northwestern University. He was awarded a partial HAND Research Foundation Scholarship in 2010. Amirreza earned his MS in economics and his BS in computer engineering from Sharif University of Technology.

Seyedabdol Mirtaher holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering and will complete a Master of Science degree in economics this year from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. His areas of interest include structural industrial organization, contracts and incentives, corporate finance and governance, organizational economics, and political economy. Says Mr. Mirtaher "By assisting me to study at the University of Chicago, this scholarship will help me achieve my goal of contributing to the raising of the profile of the field of economics in Iran."

Zahra Mohammadi has earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and will also complete a Master of Science degree in economics this year from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. During her master's degree program she has been the coordinator of weekly economic lectures at the Graduate School of Management and Economics at Sharif University and, as a HAND Research Foundation Fellow, hopes to continue to continue to help train a generation of economic intellectuals in Iran by organizing talks by Iranian scholars at economics schools in Iran.