Biography:

Dr. Faramarz Rafipoor was born in Tehran, Iran in 1941. 
He received his B.S., M.S. degrees in Agriculture from the University of  Hohenheim in Germany in 1968. He received his Ph.D. degree in Social Science from the same university in 1974 with high honors. He did post doctoral research at the University of Kessel in Witzenhausen, Germany the following year on teaching methods. In February 1975 he joined Shahid Beheshti University (known as the National University of Iran at the time) as a faculty member. Between 1982 and 1984 he was involved in a research project on “Needs Assessment” in the University of Hohenheim. He got his “Habilitation” (Professorship-thesis) and “Venia Legendi” from the University of Hohenheim in 1987. In the academic year 1988/89 he was a visiting honorary fellow at the department of rural sociology in the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He became a full professor in Iran in 1990. Professor Rafipoor has authored some 10 books such as “Needs and Need Dynamics in Development Planning”, “An Introduction to the Methodology of Social Science”, “Communication Media and Changing Values”, “Modernization and Conflict: An Attempt towards the Analysis of the Islamic Revolution and Social Problems in Iran”. Professor Rafipoor is also the author of numerous articles in the above areas. He won the prize for the best book of the year in 1985, and was selected as a distinguished scholar of Iran in 1996. Since 1998 he is a fellow of the Academy of Science of Iran.