Zahra Mirzaei is an architectural designer, researcher, and historian of modern architecture. She is a doctoral student in Architecture with a minor in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at Georgia Tech. Her research situates the intersection of architectural history, media studies, and STS, focusing on alternative narratives of modern architectural histories in non-Western countries.

Her doctoral research investigates the impact of an international architectural competition on both the national context of Iran and the broader international scene in the 1970s, considering the competition as a form of media and an international platform for collaboration. Her research examines the diverse narratives surrounding this competition in Iran, focusing particularly on testimonies that have been overshadowed by nationalist perspectives.

Zahra’s research on Iranian modern architecture has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Islamic Architecture and Sofeh. She presented her PhD project at the 77th Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in Albuquerque, as well as at the 78th Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in Atlanta.

Since 2023, Zahra has served as the executive officer of ConCave, the Ph.D. Student Group in College of Design. In this role, she has co-organized the third international ConCave Ph.D. Symposium, titled “Divergence in Architectural Research 2024,” and edited the third volume of “Divergence in Architectural Research 2025: Proceedings of ConCave Ph.D. Symposium 2024.”

For the 2024-25 academic year, she won the Herbert P. Haley Fellowship Award at the College of Design, Georgia Institute of Technology. Zahra holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Tehran and a master’s degree in Iranian Architecture Studies from the Centre for Documentation, Architectural Studies, and Restoration at Shahid Beheshti University. She has seven years of professional experience in architecture, having worked at Parsa Ardam and the 210-6 architects firm in Tehran.