Mostafa is a research innovation and policy expert with over 15 years of experience in academia, industry and nonprofit sectors in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. He is currently working as the Executive Director of the international nonprofit - Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA). He is a former Co-chair of the EU Science Diplomacy Alliance & Chair of the MCAA. He took part in several policy initiatives, such as MSCA Supervision Guidelines, taking part in the consultation for researchers, representing researchers and organising policy debates and dialogues with high-level participants including European Commissioners, Ministers, and Members of the Parliaments. He has served as an Independent Expert in the Mutual Learning Exercise on Knowledge Valorization and Intersectoral Mobility, playing a pivotal role in shaping best practices and policies in these domains. He also worked as the researcher mobility expert on the “Knowledge Ecosystem in the new ERA” study. He is currently involved in projects like Sustainable Careers for Researcher Empowerment (SECURE), CoARA-Boost. 

As a researcher in nanotechnology, he also worked in projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC), ECSEL and KDT Joint Undertaking, FP7 to Horizon Europe, the Austrian Science Fund, COST-Action and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency. His dedication and contributions in these roles earned him accolades, including the Young Scientist Award at the European Materials Research Society and the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy.