Elahe Enssani, PhD, MEng., MSc., PE (AZ)

A civic-minded scholar and environmental expert, Commissioner Elahe Enssani brings a unique set of skills to the Immigrant Rights Commission. Currently a professor of Environmental and Civil Engineering at San Francisco State University, she previously founded Applied Technology and Sciences, a San Francisco-based environmental consulting firm, and worked with the City and County of San Francisco where she oversaw various environmental programs. Enssani holds a Ph.D, master’s in Civil Engineering and master’s in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley, as well as a bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from Sharif (Araymehr) University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. She has been widely recognized for her achievements in academia and engineering, including “Top 100 Scientists in 2005,” by the International Biographic Center in Cambridge, England, and as an extraordinary engineer in the book Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers by Sybil E. Hatch, P.E. (ASCE Press 2006). Although her academic training has been in Math and Engineering, Enssani has always been a writer, a poet, and a passionate political activist. She is currently Chair of Nowruz at City Hall (a celebration of Persian New Year in San Francisco), Co-Founder of the Iranian American Chamber of Commerce, a member of Encyclopedia Iranica, and Founder of CWESTE (Committee for Women’s Education in Science, Technology and Engineering) at SF State University.