Shadi Rouhshahbaz

Shadi Rouhshahbaz is an interdisciplinary foresight researcher, facilitator, and teaching associate at the University of Melbourne working at the intersection of feminist geopolitics, participatory futures, anticipatory governance, and inclusive peacebuilding. Her work spans multilateral institutions, academia, media, and civil society ecosystems, with a particular focus on Iran, West Asia, intergenerational movements, and the future of multilateral cooperation under conditions of crisis and uncertainty.

She holds a Double-Joint Master’s degree in International Development – Migration and Mediation from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3, and has worked with UN agencies, universities, donor organisations, and international civil society networks across Australia, Europe, North Africa, the United States, and the Middle East. Shadi is a Women PeaceMakers Program Fellow and a School of International Futures Next Generation Foresight Practitioner Fellow in Nuclear Disarmament.

Alongside her research and teaching, she designs immersive and strategic learning environments, simulations, and participatory futures exercises that translate complex geopolitical and social dynamics into accessible public insight. Rooted in her experience as a young woman navigating and shaping intersectional peacebuilding spaces, her work combines systems thinking, narrative intelligence, and experiential facilitation to explore how societies and political imaginaries evolve through transition, disruption, and transformation. She is also the founder of PeaceMentors, the first young-women-led peacebuilding initiative in Iran.