Education
PhD in Management of Organizations, UC Berkeley (Haas School of Business)
Subjects
Organizational Studies, Expert Work, AI and Technology, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Organizations
Achievements
MD and MPH from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (GPA 3.9/4.0 and 4.0/4.0); MBA from UC Berkeley Haas (GPA 3.9/4.0); Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award (Haas, 2024); UC Berkeley Graduate Fellowship; MIT Presidential Award (2021, declined); over 30 peer-reviewed publications in medicine and public health; research grants totaling over USD 29,000
About
Farnam is a physician-turned-organizational scholar completing her PhD at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, with a research home in radiation oncology at UCSF. Trained as a family physician, she now studies how AI and new technologies such as social media reshape expert work and reveal the hidden dimensions of professional judgment, pairing long-term ethnographic fieldwork with large-scale analysis of clinical data.
Discipline
Economics & Business
Academic Achievements
MD and MPH from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (GPAs of 3.9/4.0 and 4.0/4.0), followed by an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business (GPA 3.9/4.0). Currently a PhD candidate in Management of Organizations at Haas, with Designated Emphases in Science and Technology Studies and in the Sociology of Organizations and Markets. Recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award (Haas, 2024), a UC Berkeley Graduate Fellowship, and the MIT Presidential Award (2021, declined). Author of over 30 peer-reviewed publications in medicine and public health, and winner of multiple competitive research grants totaling over $29,000. Work presented at leading venues including the Academy of Management and the American Sociological Association.
Teaching & Mentoring Experience
I have served as a Graduate Student Instructor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business across two periods (2022–2023 and 2025–2026), teaching courses including Leading People, Introduction to Finance, Corporate Finance, Business Analytics, and Marketing, with class sizes ranging from 12 to 250 students. I received the Outstanding GSI Award (Haas, 2024) in recognition of this teaching. I also served as a DLab Fellow and Instructor at UC Berkeley (2023–2024), teaching data-science methods to graduate students and researchers across departments.
Explore more mentors