Jafarzadeh was born in Mashhad, Iran where he finished his high school education. He then started his higher education in Metallurgical Engineering at Aryamehr University of Technology, which is now [Sharif University of Technology]. He moved to the United States before the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In the USA he studied civil engineering, obtaining his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin.