Negar Arabzadeh.

My name is Negar Arabzadeh (نگار). In Persian, Negar means “beloved” — or a piece of art to be cherished.

I am a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, working with Professor Matei Zaharia. I completed my PhD at the University of Waterloo, where I was advised by Dr. Charles Clarke.

I was born and raised in Iran and moved to Canada in 2017 to pursue my dreams. After eight years of living in Canada, I finally moved to the place I had dreamed of as a child — California.

• research

  It is truly my passion — I do not think I have ever thought about anything else this much.

• games

  I have a big collection of board games and love playing them, along with video games. Fair warning: I get very competitive.

• my cats

  Chaloos and Cheetoz — meet them below.

• travel

  Travelling is what I look forward to most — one of the perks of a research career is that conferences keep sending me places.

I have two cats. Chaloos is named after the most beautiful road I have ever seen in Iran. She is calm, composed, and quietly dignified — how I aspire to be. Cheetoz is pure mayhem, restless and tireless — closer to how I actually am.

I love travelling. I want to visit 100 countries by the time I turn 50!