Samaneh Moafi is an architect and one of the key researchers at the London-based group Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. The group uses maps, satellite imagery, 3D models, and witness testimony to reconstruct events whose true course states or corporations seek to conceal or otherwise dispute. She has, for example, contributed to the investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire in London, led the reconstruction of the devastating explosion at the port of Beirut, and examined the impact of oil and gas extraction on Indigenous territories in Argentina. She is currently Deputy Director of Research at Forensic Architecture, where she explores new ways of turning images and traces in the landscape into evidence of violence against people and the environment. She originally trained as an architect, and her academic work has also examined how housing, everyday life, and the position of women are connected to power and resistance in Iran.

She is a member of the board of trustees of The Mosaic Room, a nonprofit gallery and cultural centre, and in 2026 became one of the Geddes Visiting Fellows—an internationally recognised architect or practitioner—at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.