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I am a licensed architect based in the United States. In 2019, I received the H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship from the Society of Architectural Historians, a $55k award to travel around the world for a year to study the effects of war on architecture and cities.

I was born in Baghdad, Iraq. I received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Architecture and Italian from Wellesley College and a Master's degree in Architecture from the University of Minnesota. I worked at the studio of Frank Gehry (Gehry Partners, LLC) for four years on large-scale cultural and civic projects, most notable of which is the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum. My professional experience spans different stages of design and construction documentation with a focus on exterior façade systems. 

I’m interested in the design of environments and spaces that are connected to their social and natural contexts by engaging existing practices and materials while innovating their use to build on local knowledge and preserve a place's architectural identity. I believe architects have a social commitment to address and resist the effects of capitalist globalization in shaping our environments to become vessels for consumerism and profit generation, stripped of social and artistic values that create connections between people and places. My personal experiences of living in places with rich architectural traditions shaped my belief in the importance of architectural history in informing the design process. 

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