About me

Hi, I’m Mona Peyvasteh, originally from Iran, currently living near Santa Claus😊. I have a M.Sc. in Physics (Solid State) and currently, I’m a researcher and a doctoral candidate in Photonics working in Biophotonics group, Opto-Electronic and Measurement Techniques research unit (OPEM) at the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.

I have been funded by I4Future doctoral program, Imaging for the Future: Novel Imaging and Characterization Methods in Bio, Medical and Environmental Research and Technology Innovations which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skoldowska-Curie grant agreement No 713606.

My doctoral research is on polarimetric and spectral imaging approaches for quantitative characterization of biotissues. I have used these techniques to study meat samples and investigate its freshness. Recently, I created a cover design for Journal of Biophotonics by using Blender (for the first time using a 3D design tool) that was a challenging but worthful experience and it has been published on the front cover of May issue (here).

I am also a member of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, (as the president) and also, member of OSA, Optical Society of America, (as the vice president) student chapters in which we try to increase knowledge of general public in light-based technologies through organizing events like International Day of light, SPIE FOCUS Photonics School, Researchers’ Nights, International Days of Light, visiting schools and collaborating with companies. The following poster created by Tatiana (a former Fab Academy student and my dear colleague) shows our activities in the chapters in a nutshell:

Due to my research topic potential and my long-term passion for entrepreneurship and startups, I started to attend several courses and workshops to raise my knowledge and last year, I joined to the OuluES, Oulu Entrepreneurship Society, as the Community Lead responsible for organizing events, creating connections between collaborators and the members, networking with companies in different fields to provide proper contents for the target guilds.

As you might notice from my background, almost all of the Fab academy context are new to me, including 3D design and electronics. Actually, my only interaction with Fablab was during Äbi Day 2017, hosted by Fablab Oulu where I was attending as the representative of I4Future and Biophotonics group to present a demo includig a couple of measurements for the new students of the university, and tah was all!:D

It is like entering (better to say jumping!:D) to an absolutely new world. But I am participating Fab Academy 2021 (in Fablab Oulu") since I truly have huge passion and enthusiasm to explore and learn new things especially digital fabrication skills that are quite applicable and useful for different fields. I have been also highly motivated for it because of its applications in my mentioend activities. For example, we have several public events engaging specifically kids through preparing a demo and also, organizing hands-on workshops to help them making optical toys and simple setups. So, I can apply the skills I will learn during Fab Academy to transfer to them. Furthermore, since I am interested in entrepreneurship, this could be a great opportunity for me to learn about quite a wide field of skills which might be very useful for my future career.

Here, you will find a detailed documentation of the whole journey I have with Fab Academy 2021 including the weekly assignments and my final project.