American University of Beirut

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Howayda Al-Harithy

Dr. Howayda Al-Harithy is a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the American University of Beirut and Research Director at the Beirut Urban Lab. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the Oregon School of Design, a Master of Science in Architecture from MIT, and a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University. Al-Harithy’s research focuses on urban heritage. Her early research was centered on the architectural and urban practices of the Mamluk period in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. It engaged theoretical models of interpretation, particularly post-structuralist models, as analytic tools of the production of architectural and urban space in medieval cities. Her current research conceptualizes urban recovery in relation to processes of historical editing, urban trauma, and protracted displacement.

https://beiruturbanlab.com/

 

Mona El Hallak 

Mona El Hallak is a Beirut-based architect and heritage preservation activist, a graduate of the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Syracuse University – Florence Program. In 2001, she founded her own architectural design studio and in 2017, she joined AUB as the director of the Neighborhood Initiative (AUBNI), whose aim is to promote Ras Beirut’s livability, vitality, and diversity, to encourage critical citizenship, and to activate public space and engage the community in reclaiming their neighborhood. She led several heritage preservation campaigns and succeeded in the preservation of the Barakat Building - now Beit Beirut, a museum of memory and a cultural and urban center. She is an active member of APSAD (Association pour la Protection des Sites et Anciens Demeures au Liban) and ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), a founding member of IRAB for the preservation of the Arab world’s musical archives; and of ZAKIRA for the promotion of photography and its role in documenting and preserving memory. In 2013, she was given the Ordre National du Mérite au grade de Chevalier from the President of the French Republic, in recognition of her achievements in preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of Beirut. She recently co-directed "Allo, Beirut?", a unique one year immersive multimedia exhibition in Beit Beirut about the history of the city in the sixties and the way artists see Beirut today.

https://www.aub.edu.lb/Neighborhood/Pages/default.aspx

 

Fouad Fouad 

Dr. Fouad M. Fouad is an Associate Professor of Public Health Practice at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut and the IDRC Chair of the Forced Displacement Program in the Middle East. He is a Co-Director of the Refugee Health Program at the Global Health Institute and a Research Fellow at Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. Fouad has extensive research on migration and health focusing on multidisciplinary approaches to forced displacement, health systems in humanitarian settings, and the political economy of health in protracted crises.

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Lebanese American University

 

Nadim Farajalla

Dr. Nadim Farajalla is the Chief Sustainability Officer at the Lebanese American University. He has an MS in irrigation engineering in 1989 from Utah State University and an MS and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1995. He worked for eight years in the private sector in the US and the Middle East focusing on environmental issues, water resources management, and infrastructure design. In 2009, Dr. Farajalla founded and headed the Land, Water and Environment Department at the consulting firm SETS International with projects in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, and Oman. He subsequently founded and directed the Climate Change and Environment program at the American University of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. His research focuses on the opportunities and challenges in implementing Agenda 2030 in Lebanon and the region with a special emphasis on integrating the sustainable development goals into an academic framework, especially on university campuses and in curricula. 

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Centre for Lebanese Studies

 

Maha Shuayb 

Dr. Maha Shuayb is the Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies since 2012 and an Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. She is also a Co-investigator at PROCOL Lebanon. Prior to that, she was a Senior Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Maha has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Cambridge. She is a founding member and the former president of the Lebanese Association for History. She is also a co-founding member of the Disability Hub, a collective initiative that aims to promote research and advocacy around disability in the Arab World

https://lebanesestudies.com/

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UCL PEARL

 

Samar Maqusi 

Dr. Samar Maqusi is a Research Associate at University College London’s Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL). Her work looks into the politics of space-making inside the Palestine refugee camps. More recently, she has been investigating modes of sociality and vitality in refugee camps inside a burdened Lebanon. Previously, Samar worked with UNRWA (UN Agency for Palestine Refugees) as an Architect/Physical Planner, focusing on programs of shelter rehabilitation and camp improvement.

 

Nick Tyler

Dr. Nick Tyler is the Director of the UCL Centre for Transport Studies and Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering. His work investigates how people interact with their immediate environments. He set up the Accessibility Research Group within the Centre for Transport Studies, with a team of researchers investigating many aspects of accessibility and public transport. The group has a total research portfolio of more than £40million for projects directed towards making the world more sympathetic to people's needs and creating a sustainable future for both people and the planet. including the PAMELA pedestrian environment laboratory, which is being used to develop models for accessible pedestrian infrastructure, and which is being enhanced as part of the Government's UKCRIC programme, to create a new larger facility called PEARL. He is also a co-founder of the UCL Universal Composition Laboratory (UCL2), which undertakes multisensorial spatiotemporal design.

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https://www.ucl.ac.uk/person-environment-activity-research-laboratory/welcome-pearl

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University College London

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Diana Laurillard
Professor Diana Laurillard is Chair of Learning with Digital Technologies, UCL Knowledge Lab at the Institute of Education. Professor Laurillard's research projects include: Developing in the Learning Designer suite of tools and online community for teachers and trainers, adaptive games apps for learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia and the use of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) for professional development courses, and as a research tool.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/ioe-faculty-education-and-society

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Tejendra Pherali
Dr Tejendra Pherali is a Senior Lecturer in Education and International Development at the UCL Institute of Education. His research and teaching focus mainly on interactions between education and conflict and the role of education in peace-building in fragile environments. Currently, he is leading research on higher education development in conflict-affected Somalia and educational innovations in refugee situations in Lebanon. He also leads a Masters course on Education, Conflict and Fragility at UCL Institute of Education.

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Elaine Chase
Dr Elaine Chase is a Senior Lecturer in Education, Health Promotion, and International Development at UCL's Institute of Education. Her research focuses on the well-being outcomes of young people and communities, particularly those most likely to experience disadvantage and marginalization. Elaine is Principal Investigator on an ESRC-funded study 'Becoming Adult' (www.becomingadult.net), exploring the well-being outcomes of former unaccompanied migrant young people after turning 18, and CoInvestigator on an international ESRC-DFID funded study examining ways to reduce stigma in antipoverty policies.

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Eileen Kennedy
Dr Eileen Kennedy specializes in ways of enhancing and sharing practice in online and blended learning. This involves developing learning design tools (with Diana Laurillard), creating teacher communities online (e.g. through MOOCs) and researching the experience of learning online. In addition to her role with RELIEF, she is also a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Global Higher Education at UCL Institute of Education, where she works on the transformative potential of digital technologies in higher education.

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