Engineer and Project Manager (Iran)

From 2006 to 2015, I worked as a Senior Agricultural (Water) Engineer with Jarfab Payesh Consulting Engineers in Iran, delivering complex, multidisciplinary projects spanning irrigation and drainage, hydrology, hydraulic structures, crop physiology, and crop modelling. I served as project manager and senior engineer on several large-scale irrigation schemes and hydraulic infrastructure projects, including pressurised irrigation systems in Qazvin, Zanjan, and Hormozgan; major diversion dams and canal networks in Kermanshah and Khorasan; and flood-management and groundwater-recharge works in Ilam and Kurdistan. My responsibilities encompassed the full project cycle, from initial surveys and conceptual design to detailed hydraulic calculations, drafting, cost estimation, and technical reporting. I collaborated with academic partners from the University of Tehran and Imam Khomeini International University and incorporated remotely sensed and soil-sensor data into crop-model simulations to assess long-term impacts on yield, irrigation efficiency, and nutrient management. I also led hydrological assessments, water-balance modelling, and floodplain zoning using tools such as HEC-HMS and HEC-RAS, and delivered high-quality engineering outputs aligned with national standards.

Complementing my engineering work, I built strong analytical and data-science capability, managing extensive meteorological and agro-hydrological datasets using R, MATLAB, SQL, Excel, SPSS, ArcGIS, and QGIS. I applied machine learning and statistical techniques to address missing data, identify anomalies, explore climatic trends, conduct clustering analyses, and support engineering decision-making. Between 2012 and 2013, I also worked as an Agricultural Engineer and Data Analyst with Saj Geo-information Consulting Firm, where I modelled wheat yield and water requirements using WOFOST, evaluated statistical weather generators, and implemented machine-learning models (Random Forest, SVM, ANN) to improve climate-data quality. Earlier, during my PhD research assistantship at the University of Tehran (2008–2012), I developed and validated DSSAT models for seven crops, constructed a linear-programming planning tool for climate-change adaptation, integrated DSSAT into an agro-hydrological model, and introduced novel ANN and Hammerstein–Wiener approaches to reservoir-inflow prediction. My work combined advanced modelling, climate downscaling, scenario analysis, and multi-criteria evaluation, resulting in more than twenty peer-reviewed publications and contributions to national climate-change adaptation frameworks.

From November 2016 to April 2017, I returned to Jarfab Payesh Consulting Engineers as Project Manager and Senior Engineer, where I led major irrigation and hydraulic projects including large drip-irrigation schemes in Alborz and Firouzkouh, low-pressure irrigation systems in Rey, and a diversion-dam and pipeline development in Kermanshah. I managed design teams, coordinated project sequencing with senior management, undertook hydraulic design and drafting, and conducted field surveys with Leica systems. In parallel, I strengthened the organisation’s analytical capability by implementing R-, Python-, SQL-, and Power BI-based data workflows; testing machine-learning models for hydrological and meteorological prediction; and producing publication-ready spatial analyses using ArcGIS, QGIS, ggplot2, matplotlib, and seaborn. During mandatory military service (2013–2014), I served as Head of the Agriculture and Water Resources Research Group, establishing a multidisciplinary research unit focused on irrigation, drainage, agronomy, and water-resources planning, and developed long-term research and proposal strategies for the organisation.

In 2017, I co-founded Fannavaran Keyhan Danesh Novin Co., a company specialising in digital agriculture and integrated water-resources management. As CEO, I led efforts to modernise agricultural analytics and introduce data-science-enhanced methodologies across crop modelling, agrometeorology, and water-resource planning. I oversaw the integration of crop simulation models such as WOFOST, AquaCrop, DSSAT, and APSIM with agro-hydrological frameworks to support strategic basin-scale decision-making. This work advanced the use of digital tools and model-based planning in Iran’s agricultural and water sectors and strengthened national capability for sustainable production and climate-adaptation strategies.

Projects

Under Development