Gharesifard holds a joint PhD from TU-Delft & IHE Delft on technology-enabled public participation for water and environmental management. Since 2015, he has been involved in conceptual and empirical research in the context of large-scale European Union (EU) funded citizen science projects including WeSenseit, Ground Truth 2.0, WeObserve, MICS and CitiMeasure.

His research focuses on the applications and challenges of citizen science projects and, in particular, how stakeholder participation and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) can lead to changes in stakeholder relations, learning and decision-making at different levels of governance.

He is currently the lead researcher and coordinator of CitiMeasure, an EU-funded project that brings together the experiences and knowledge of more than 40 European cities and organisations on the applications of citizen science to create smart, sustainable and inclusive European cities.