Mehrnaz is the Strategic Partnership Manager at IPIC and she is responsible for building and nurturing partnerships with companies, academic institutions, national and international agencies, which will result in the capital efficient development and deployment of new photonics based products, in particular supporting SMEs and start-ups in their journey.
She holds a PhD from Tarbiat Modares University in industrial engineering with a focus on venture capital contracting. She was the general director of the national VC association in Iran during her PhD. She has over a decade of experience working with start-ups and investors. In addition, she has a wealth of experience in corporate start-up collaboration in a variety of industries. She is passionate about transforming the expertise and knowledge of researchers into applications for companies.