Azam is a Visiting Scholar at the City Institute and an Instructor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University. She has worked as a professional development and urban planner with different national and international organizations before she started her doctoral program in 2008. Her Ph.D. research focuses on the convergence of developmentalism, worlding practices, and neoliberalism in the urban reforms in Tehran. Her research interests include modernization, developmentalism and production of space, urban and regional governance, social housing, gender and space, and research methods. She has edited the books: The City and Deadly Earthquakes: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Causes of Vulnerabilities of the Urban to Earthquake (2010, Tehran: Agah) and A Critical Lens on Women’s Empowerment and Development Discourses (2009, Tehran: Agah Publishing House). Her recent articles include: “Towards a differential planetary urbanization: A view from Middle Eastern cities” (co-authored with Oded Haas 2018), Environment and Planning D: Society and Space; “The space reloaded: publics and politics on Enqelab Street” in Sharp and Panetta (eds.) Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (2016); “Decentralization and ambiguities of local politics in Tehran” (co-authored with Arang Keshavarzian 2016); “La rénovation urbaine en Iran: De I’interventionnisme d’Etat au mercantilisme” in Mina Saeidi-Sharouz (ed.) Le Téhéran des quartiers popularizes, transformation urbaine et société civile en République Islamique (2013).
