Reza Faraji-Dana (born 1960 in

Qom Qom (; ) is a city in the Central District of Qom County, Qom province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is the seventh largest metropolis and also the seventh largest city in Iran. The city is ...

) is an Iranian electrical engineer and reformist politician, who was the minister of Science, Research and Technology under President

Hassan Rouhani Hassan Rouhani (; born Hassan Fereydoun, 12 November 1948) is an Iranian peoples, Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. He is also a sharia lawyer ("Wakil"), academic, former diplomat and Islamic cl ...

. He served as president of

University of Tehran The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...

, and as the former president of the Iranian branch of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

Biography

Reza Faraji-Dana was born in 1960 in

and received his math diploma from Hakim Nezami high school in 1978. In the same year, he was admitted to the

Shiraz University Shiraz University ( ''Dāneshgāh-e-Shirāz'', 1979 revolution, formerly known as Pahlavi dynasty, Pahlavi University دانشگاه پهلوی ''Dāneshgāh-e Pahlavi'') is a public university located in Shiraz, Fars province, Fars, Iran, establ ...

in electrical engineering. He studied

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

, and at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

in Ontario, Canada. He graduated with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Waterloo in 1993. He works as the professor of electrical engineering at the University of Tehran.

Dismissal

Iranian parliament dismissed him as Minister of Science on 20 August 2014. The conservative MPs accused him of permitting students involved in

2009–10 Iranian election protests After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests con ...

to continue their education in public universities. He was also accused of appointing senior department heads from people involved in the mass protests of 2009. Some of the PMs who voted for the dismissal of Farajidana were allegedly benefiting from unlawful scholarships in the previous government and the list of those who granted unlawful scholarships has been revealed during the ministration of Farajidana. He was removed from office through

impeachment Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. It may be understood as a unique process involving both political and legal elements. In Eur ...

in August 2014.

References

Government ministers of Iran University of Waterloo alumni 1960 births Living people Presidential advisers of Iran Impeached Iranian officials removed from office Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel of the Iran–Iraq War Iranian electrical engineers Iranian engineers Ministers of science of Iran People from Qom Microwave engineers Academic staff of the University of Tehran {{Iran-politician-stub