Bahar Rezaei defends PhD thesis remotely
On 31 May 2017, Bahar Rezaei defended her PhD thesis entitled Essays in the Information Economy. Her PhD defence was extraordinary, because it was held remotely. Bahar communicated with the PhD committee in the University Hall in Utrecht via video-conference from Los Angeles. This was a highly unusual situation and has never happened at Utrecht University before.
Bahar was permitted to defend her thesis in this way because of exceptional circumstances. Originally from Iran, the academic is now living in the United States, but would not dare not leave the country. Iran is one of six countries to which the new travel ban applies. Since her visa application is still being processed, Bahar risks not being allowed to re-enter the US.
In spite of the circumstances, the PhD thesis defence was successful. According to Stephanie Rosenkranz, her supervisor at the Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.), Bahar Rezaei has conducted groundbreaking research on behavioural economics.
See also the articles (in Dutch) of DUB () and NRC ().