Mohammad Reza Aref (, born 19 December 1951) is an Iranian engineer, academic and reformist politician who was the parliamentary leader of reformists' Hope fraction in the Iranian Parliament, representing Tehran, Rey, Shemiranat and Eslamshahr. Aref has also been heading the Reformists' Supreme Council for Policymaking since its establishment in 2015.He is currently member of the Expediency Discernment Council. He was the second first vice president from 2001 to 2005 under Mohammad Khatami. He previously served as Minister Information and Communications Technology and head of Management and Planning Organization in Khatami's first cabinet. He was a member of Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution until the year of 2021, and the current member of Expediency Discernment Council. He is also an electrical engineer and a professor at University of Tehran and Sharif University of Technology. He was a candidate in the 2013 presidential election but withdrew his candidacy in order to give the reformist camp a better chance to win. Early life and education Aref was born on 19 December 1951 in Yazd. His father, Mirza Ahmad Aref, was a famous businessman. He received a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from the University of Tehran, and a master's degree and a PhD in electrical and communication engineering from Stanford University in 1975, 1976 and 1980, respectively. His PhD thesis was on the information theory of networks, supervised by Thomas M. Cover. He introduced and analyzed deterministic relay networks which is later termed as Aref Networks. During his education at Tehran University, he led many protests and was arrested by SAVAK prior to the Iranian Revolution. Career During his political career, Aref has held important positions in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Following the Islamic Revolution, he began his political career. His first major political post was in 1981 when he became vice president of communication company. He later became acting president of the company in 1983 and became deputy minister of science on the following year. Aref was a faculty member of Isfahan University of Technology until 1994. Aref, who was a professor at University of Tehran, was elected as its chancellor in 1994. He began his career with creating Faculty of Social Sciences and also Institute of Geophysics. After his appointment as minister of technology, Aref was resigned as chancellor of the Tehran University in 1997. After Mohammad Khatami was elected as President of Iran, he nominated Aref as