Hamed is a PhD candidate in Professor Downie's lab. He completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Optometry at Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2021 and 2023, respectively. After his undergraduate studies, and throughout his Master’s degree, he worked as a clinical optometrist in private practices. Encountering a large number of patients with ocular surface discomfort sparked his strong interest in understanding and investigating the ocular surface.

For his Master’s thesis, he investigated keratoconus and explored associations between topographic factors and anterior chamber angle narrowing. During this period, he also served for a limited time as a teaching assistant in the binocular vision anomalies clinic and worked as a research assistant at an ophthalmic research centre in Tehran, where he contributed to literature reviews, translations and other preliminary work for upcoming projects.

Since completing his Master’s in 2023, he continued in full-time clinical practice as an optometrist while pursuing research in parallel. As a freelance researcher. he published a paper examining dry eye and convergence insufficiency symptomatology among e-commerce workers - work that is close to his current PhD research on computer vision syndrome.

Outside of work and research, Hamed has enjoyed a range of activities over the years, including basketball, electric guitar, hiking, gym training, watching TV series, gaming, language learning, and travel. These days, he mainly focuses on occasional gym sessions, continuing to study French, and spending time with his wife, whether sightseeing, visiting animal shelters or simply exploring Melbourne together.