2021 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award

The University of Arizona Postdoctoral Affairs would like to offer our congratulations to the 2021 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award recipient Dr. Irene Shivaei. Dr. Shivaei is a member of the Astronomy Department and Steward Observatory. She was nominated by her mentors for her outstanding collaborations in the field of Astronomy and her community outreach efforts.

Dr. Shivaei’s accomplishments include collaborating in over 42 widely cited peer-reviewed publications, a NASA Hubble Fellowship, and the creation of the Mentorship and Education in SCIence for Tucson (MESCIT) program. MESCIT is a math tutoring and mentorship program for local Native American high school students that aims to reduce the underrepresentation of Native American scholars in STEM fields. This program trains UArizona undergraduate students as math tutors to hold personalized math tutoring sessions at the Ha:sañ Preparatory and Leadership School, a charter high school with predominantly Tohono O’odham students. Dr. Shivaei’s leadership is not limited to serving the Tucson community. She is also the co-founder of Staryab, an astrophysical literature website in Persian that presents astrophysics research to undergraduate students in simple language.

Her nominators described her as “a passionate educator who has gone above and beyond the expectations of a postdoctoral scholar to create an incredible program that is critical to the realization of the UA Strategic Plan, which embraces its original mission as a Land Grant Institution to serve the unique needs of the diverse population of Arizona.”