Alex Mehr

Alex Mehr (born 1978) is an entrepreneur, technologist, and the co-founder and Co-CEO of Zoosk, a romantic social network. Mehr immigrated to the United States from Iran in 2000 to pursue a master's degree followed by a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. After a year of post-doctoral work, Mehr started working as a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. In 2007, Mehr co-founded Zoosk with Shayan Zadeh. As one of the fastest-growing romantic social networks, Zoosk has been on the Wall Street Journal's Top 50 Venture-Funded companies list since 2010.
Mehr has been profiled as an entrepreneurial success story in the Forbes magazine and in the book Venture Capitalists at Work. Today, Mehr is co-CEO of Zoosk. He has published over 25 peer-reviewed academic papers on engineering and business.
After graduating with their bachelor's degrees in 2000, Mehr and Zadeh immigrated to the U.S. to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland, College Park.
As graduate students, Mehr and Zadeh attended entrepreneurial workshops, developed a business plan that took second place at a university competition, and launched their first company while still in school with two other friends.
Immigration issues prevented the group from pursuing their fledgling company. Mehr's attorney told them they would have to give up the business venture and get traditional jobs in companies that could sponsor them for the H-1B visa, which forced them to dissolve their company. Mehr describes that day as one of the worst of his life. After completing his dissertation on the design and optimization of complex engineering systems, Mehr moved to California where he worked as a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center on several robotic and manned space missions.
By 2011, the company’s sales exceeded $90 million, doubling sales from the previous year.

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