Seyed Ali-Akbar Mousavi is a senior advisor and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CRDC. His focus is on peace tech, which is the development of information and communication technology (ICT) for peace and conflict resolution/management in order to tackle the drivers of conflict, promote stability, and build peace. Peace tech also aims to reduce violent conflict by developing and using technology, media, and data.
He has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University, the University of Maryland, Telecom Ecole de Management (France), and Virginia Tech. He has lectured and appeared on panels at American University, George Washington University, and the University of Maryland.
Mousavi was a member of the 6th Parliament of Iran where he held several positions, including Deputy of the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, Secretary of the Tehran District, Head of Inspecting and Supervising of Prisons, and Member of the Student Movement Caucus. In 2006, he was imprisoned for more than four months because of his participation in a gathering to support equal rights for women and men in Tehran and was banned from traveling out of the country for six months.
He has engaged in track II and public diplomacy with a variety of national and international stakeholders, including parliamentary, academic, non-governmental, business, and political figures on both sides of conflicts. He was an advocate for signing a peace agreement between the P5+1 countries and Iran during the Obama administration. He has appeared on numerous media outlets, including BBC, Al Jazeera, NPR, C-SPAN, Voice of America, Iran International, CNN, Radio Farda (Radio Free Europe), The New York Times, and the Huffington Post.
Mousavi was previously a lecturer and led the students’ graduation projects at several branches of the University of Applied Science and Technology in Tehran.
Dr. Mousavi holds a Ph.D. in ICT management, a master’s degree in IT management, a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and an associate’s degree in telecommunications.