Born 1966 in Tehran, Iran. Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of California in Davis (1987), Ph.D. in Physics (supervisors: E. A. Hinds and S. Haroche) from Yale University (1993), Postdoctoral Fellow at École Normale Supérieure (group of S. Haroche) in Paris. Head of the Nano-Optics group und habilitation in Physics at University of Konstanz (Chair of J. Mlynek). Professorship at Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule (ETH) Zurich (2001-2011). Recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant (2010). Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen since 2011. Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA). Founder of the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, a joint research center that aims to address questions in fundamental medical research with physical and mathematical methods.