Parinaz Naseri I recently enrolled at the University of Toronto. Edward S. Rogers Sr. College of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)As an assistant professor, I teach the education stream. This past semester, she taught ECE221: Electric and magnetic fields and ECE342: Computer hardware.
Before joining the faculty, Naceri was a student and earned his doctorate at the University of Tennessee in 2023. Her graduate research focused on the inverse design of electromagnetic metasurfaces using machine learning, with applications in satellite communications.
What brought you to the University of Toronto and what are you most excited about being here?
I completed my PhD at the University of Toronto, where I always felt encouraged, supported, and empowered not only by my supervisors but also by the broader U of T community. Even after I moved on to the industry, I stayed connected by coming back as a guest lecturer.
Joining U of T as a faculty member felt like a natural way to give back. To contribute to the same culture of mentorship and excellence that has shaped my own growth. What excites me most is the opportunity to help train the next generation of engineers and play a meaningful role in enriching the student experience in a way that reflects the support they have received in the past.
What are your main areas of research and why are they important today?
My research lies at the intersection of electromagnetic materials, specifically metasurfaces, and machine learning.
Metasurfaces enable very compact and versatile systems that can precisely control electromagnetic waves. We focus on rethinking how these structures are created by integrating machine learning into design. Replace time-consuming, intuition-driven design cycles with a data-driven approach that allows you to quickly explore complex design spaces and discover non-trivial, high-performance solutions.
This is especially important today with the increasing demand for connectivity, advanced sensing, and real-time adaptability across applications such as wireless communications, image processing, and next-generation radar systems. The purpose of my work is to develop scalable and intuitive design frameworks that make these technologies more powerful and accessible.
At the same time, I am passionate about making these concepts accessible to students and engaging enough to inspire the next generation of researchers to contribute to this rapidly evolving field.
What has been your most memorable experience in your career so far?
One of the most memorable moments for me wasmy career is European Conference on Antennas and Propagation I was a master’s student presenting my research among leading experts and industry researchers.
After one presentation, I posed a technical question and pointed out that some of the challenges being discussed were already addressed in existing literature and that the proposed approach required further scrutiny. At the time, this was not necessarily expected behavior for a student presenter, and I was later advised that it might have been better to keep quiet, especially since my own presentation was next. However, that moment unexpectedly became a turning point. The session chair agreed with my comments and subsequently contacted me to learn more about my work. This led to an invitation to join their research group in Portugal, where I worked for over a year on a project funded by the European Space Agency. That experience had a lasting impact on me. It emphasized the importance of critically engaging with technical discussions and showed me how moments of intellectual curiosity, even when uncomfortable, can open up unexpected and meaningful avenues of research.
When did you know engineering was for you?
I think I realized quite early on, probably around the age of 10, that engineering was for me. I’ve always been interested in how things work and would often take them apart to see what’s inside. One of my first projects was to make a simple stethoscope using things I had around the house, such as IV tubing and parts from a saline IV set. I made this for a school project, and I still remember how well it turned out. Getting positive feedback about it was a huge exciting moment for me at that age.
Around the same time, I was taking apart some watches I had been given as a gift, thinking I might be able to figure out how to repair them. That part didn’t work. I couldn’t put them back together properly. But looking back, these little experiments were probably the clearest early signs of where I was going. I liked understanding how things worked from the inside, even if it meant breaking it first.
As a new professor, what is one piece of advice you would give to a new student?
I would like to tell students not to be too quick to judge what they can and cannot do. A lot of growth comes from stepping into situations you don’t feel completely ready for. You can’t know what you can do just by thinking about it. Even if it feels a little out of reach, try it and you’ll understand. Skills cannot be acquired by waiting. They are built by showing up, making mistakes, and trying again. So I say this: take the chance to push yourself a little. That’s usually where the real learning begins.
What is something that students might be surprised to know about you?
My students are often a little surprised that I tend to turn everyday events into small problem-solving challenges. We will change routine work to “Can we do it a little more efficiently?” A moment when you don’t have to think about anything. It’s not something I consciously try to do. It just happens naturally. I believe that engineering thinking is not limited to universities. It also appears silently in everyday life.
