Before joining UMass, he was a senior research scientist at Caltech. He received the B.Sc. degree from the University of Tehran, the M.Sc. degree from the University of Waterloo, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering. He has conducted research on the development of novel semiconductor lasers and photonic integrated circuits, photonic and THz sensors, optical microscopy techniques, and dielectric metasurfaces. His current research interests include photonic integrated circuits and on-chip integration of free space optical elements and systems.