team

Starting back in 2018, Behzad brought Moosh together to create more meaningful collaborations and representation for the New York hospitality community at large. Behzad today manages our Research & Development programs, with a major focus on exploring countries and cultures through their food anthropology. At the core of Behzad’s work with Moosh Labs, he translates human history and experiences through tangible and meaningful knowledge, that when tooled, encourages a conscious living that is more meaningful, sustainable and cultured.

As a previous MOCA art resident and with a background in International Business, Aryan’s work is to help communicate visual stories for our community of artists and collaborators from here in New York City and across the world. Aryan’s aptitude for photography, art, design, and narrative has him cultivating genuine stories from our team and how we spend our time across our various projects. Along with Behzad, they conduct together most of our lab's field work, cooking, researching while documenting their experiences simultaneously and translating the body of this fieldwork into the foundations of our more public reaching products and programs.

Kiera utilizes her background and former experiences as a hospitality manager, coupled with her curatorial experience in design and development to help run, manage, and optimize the day-to-day operations at Moosh. Through several executive frameworks, Kiera helps vet and scope out our various projects and collaborations, and works simultaneous across our various departments, teams, and community-centered freelancers by supporting them through material inspirations, quality assurance vetting, and strategy development. In our programs, she plays the role of production + project manager, and helps us piece all the public facing aspects of Moosh together.

In the 20+ years she has spent working in hospitality operations, Sarah has been exposed to many aspects of the hospitality industry on a variety of scales from small boutique hotel properties and chef-driven Michelin starred restaurants, to multi-unit, international properties. Sarah leverages her educational background in Social Research (The Graduate Center, CUNY) and Sustainability (MIT) as well as her vast experience in hospitality operations and administrations (Tao Group, Mattos Hospitality) to build guest-focused business strategies and systems aimed at supporting management and staff. Through quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of budgets, projections and P+L’s, Sarah works to produce efficient, adaptive and resilient growth and sustainability strategies that are responsive to the various stress points that manifest in hospitality operations of any scale.

Alex has one of the most impressive aptitudes for the linguistics of graphic design, web design, animation, renderings, photo, art, printing, engineering and more. Alex was the early designer behind the Moosh brand back in 2018. Inspired by the roofing tiles from the tomb from the late Persian Poet Hafiz, our first brand identity translated from this philosophy that through collaborations, Moosh could become a supportive vehicle in helping design the mosaic that could capture the essence of our creative New York Community. Alex is at the center of that notion, driving into reality concepts that would have other remained inexpressible if not for the constant skill and care in his work to capture and fram our ever-growing experiences, projects and stories.

Having been brought up through a rural pub and cocktail culture back home in Liverpool, Chris meets the New York Hospitality scene with a desire to cultivate partnerships and collaborators in more culturally driven food and beverage programs. Chris works to represent the local diversity of foods, partners, and craftsman here in New York, driven by our various case study themes abroad and creates culturally immersive hospitality projects and ventures. Chris partner’s with Behzad in the our culinary and beverage development related research and programs.

Michael joins the Moosh team with over a decade of experience cooking and executing culinary research in restaurants and as a private chef. Though Michael graduated from the French Culinary Institute in 2011, his primary culinary focus is expanding his knowledge and mastery. This passion has taken him from molecular gastronomy, pasta and bread making to his current obsession, Mexican and Nordic cuisine. Michael works closely with Moosh’s Executive Culinary Director and Founder, Behzad Jamshidi to dive deeply into ingredients, recipes and culinary traditions to further develop and articulate Moosh’s culinary vernacular.

Alissa pursued her formal wine education at Johnson + Wales University before traveling Europe to enrich her experience with a more hands on approach in the vines with working vigneron. Alissa focuses on small, conscientious producers working bio-dynamically and organically throughout the world with an emphasis on female growers and winemakers. Tableside, Alissa focuses on cultivating dining experiences that inspire thought and conversation all while shining a light on under represented and emerging producers who demand our support and attention. Alissa curates culturally informed wine pairings and programs for Moosh’s many events and projects with this same commitment to intentional, sustainable and ethical growers and producers.

Otis is our director of ball. He is a Jack Russel from a small farm in Kentucky. He's often accompanying the team on case studies across the world (outside of the UK). He's afraid of small trash bags blowing into him. Otis is known in the south of Italy as "Piccolino". Otis's favourite food are greenies.

Our advisors are global leaders in their industries. From world class restaurateurs and chefs, to inventors, crops researchers, and entrepreneurs, we are defined and driven through this integral network of mentors.