I was born in Kermanshah, Iran, an ancient city in the mountainous region of western Iran, and grew up in a family of 9 children, three girls and six boys.
For my last 2 years of high school I moved to Tehran to live with my two older brothers, who were in the school of pharmacy and medicine at Tehran University. I studied acting prior to my freshman year of dental school.  I had an interest in writing and literature, which led me to work for a major daily newspaper in Kayhan and its affiliate publication “Kayhan Varzeshi”, which was the only weekly sports magazine. The opportunity to work, travel extensively, and experience different walks of life was the best part of my young adult life. On one of these trips, I was in the palace of the Indonesian President (Sukarno) when his opposition tried to assassinate him in May 1962. The assassin happened to be leaning on me while he was shooting at the president. I entered dental school and finished the study of dentistry in 1962. While in dental school, I met my future wife, who was studying at the school of literature.
Between graduation and leaving Iran, I spent a year as an instructor at the department of dental radiology at the school of dentistry.I went to England and lived in Brighton and London before moving to the United States on Oct. 1st 1963 to start a fellowship at the Guggenheim Dental Clinic in New York City. The following July, I became an intern at the Holyoke Hospital in Holyoke, Massachusetts; a small paper mill town 90 miles west of Boston. After completing the internship in general dentistry, I was accepted into the maxillofacial Prosthodontics program at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital & Tumor Institute and the University of Texas Dental School. There I completed 2 years of training in general Prosthodontics, head and neck surgery, radiation oncology, chemotherapy and rehabilitation of oral and facial defects by Prosthodontics means.
In July 1967, I joined the Center for Craniofacial Anomalies at the University of Illinois School of Dentistry in Chicago, as an assistant professor and Prosthodontics in charge of maxillofacial prosthetics clinics. During my 2 ½ years of affiliation with the University if Illinois, I developed a Maxillofacial Prosthodontics Clinic that is still in existence and has trained many professionals in this field and also the field of anaplastology. The Clinic is world renowned for its research and data collection on congenital craniofacial anomalies.
On November 1st, 1969, we moved to Birmingham, AL to join the faculty of UAB School of Dentistry as an assistant professor. I was on the faculty for six years, of which the last two years I was working on getting another dental degree. While on the faculty I became a part-time “advanced student”. In November 1974, I became a citizen of the United States, and in June 1975 I graduated from UAB School of Dentistry
I opened my private dental practice at the corner of 18th Street and 10th Avenue South in Birmingham on October 1st, 1975 and stayed there until July of 1982. Then I moved my office to Brookwood Hospital as part of the Cancer Center providing the same services to my patients. At Brookwood Medical Center I was in closer proximity to Dr. Eugene “Bit” Sherlock, who was my major resource of head and neck cancer patient referrals.
Dr. Sherlock has had a major impact on my personal and professional career. He was instrumental in recruiting me from the University of Illinois to UAB and then to Brookwood Medical Center.

In 1982, I was attending a plastic engineering conference in San Francisco, CA and discovered a device called Metal Spray Gun. The major use for it was in plastic injection molding. With some research, I developed a technique in mold making for maxillofacial Prosthodontics, particularly in the making of facial prosthetics. Later, I adapted the technique to make final casts for removable complete and partial dentures. This technique produces a highly accurate replica of the tissue, ensuring a significant accuracy in dentures.  I have introduced that technique to professionals in many presentations and articles. These days, I have more time to devote to the metal spray gun, and I am approaching an array of dental-related organizations to enhance the use of this technique.  In particular, I am in contact with major dental laboratories to help mainstream this process and thus promote accurate fitting of dental devices, such as removable and fixed prosthetic devices.