Dr Araz Taeihagh is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Singapore Management University. Since 2007, his research interest has been on the interface of technology and society. His work is on: a) how to shape policies to accommodate new technologies and facilitate positive socio-technical transitions; b) the effects of these new technologies on the policy process; and c) changing the way we design and analyse policies by developing innovative practical approaches that can be used to address the growth in the interdependence and complexity of our systems.

Taeihagh is interested in socio-technical systems and their transitions and focuses on the unique challenges that arise from introduction of new technologies to society (e.g. crowdsourcing, sharing economy, MOOCs, and autonomous vehicles). These new technologies are creating their own set of issues and concerns that require the understanding and appreciation of both technical and social sciences. For addressing challenges of policy design and analysis, he takes an interdisciplinary approach using artificial and collective intelligence techniques and borrows from engineering, complexity and design sciences alongside the traditional approaches in public policy to address the challenges in policy making. Araz has developed and is continuing the enhancement of a new framework and decision support system for the design and formulation of policies to help decision makers in selecting appropriate policy measures to design sustainable policies and better understand the complex interactions among alternative instruments used.

Araz earned his DPhil conducting interdisciplinary research on “A Novel Approach for the Development of Policies in Socio-Technical Systems” at University of Oxford and carried out postdoctoral studies at City Futures Research Centre (Australia’s leading urban policy research centre) at UNSW, before joining SMU in 2015. Prior to joining Oxford, Araz obtained his MSc in Environmentally Sustainable Process Technology from Chalmers University of Technology and participated in the MSc program in Engineering Mathematics at Chalmers University. Araz obtained a BSc in Process Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. Aside from academic studies, Araz has more than 10 years of experience working with EPC firms mainly dealing with PMC and Design issues relating to chemical, petroleum and construction projects and has provided technical and policy consultation on environmental, transportation, energy, and technology related issues.