• Refugee Camps; Refugee settlements; ethnic and migration studies; modern history of the Middle East; late Ottoman Empire; Levantine studies; Informality; Global South; Legal Pluralism; Human Rights; Humanitarianism; Border studies

Heba Alnajada is a Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture History at UC Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies. Her research focuses on refugee history, in particular the intersection of refugees, space, and the colonial history of the Middle East. Her Ph.D. dissertation project offers an architectural and socio-legal reflection on the contemporary Syrian refugee crisis as one episode in a history of migration that spans from the late Ottoman period to present-day Jordan. Heba received her undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Jordan and her master’s degree in Urban Design from the University of Sheffield. Her Ph.D. studies build on her previous experience as an NGO architect working in Palestinian refugee camps. Her research has been supported by numerous fellowships and grants, including a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, an IJURR Foundation Studentship, a Critical Refugee Studies Collective grant, a Human Rights Center Fellowship from UC Berkeley’s School of Law, and a grant from the Sultan Program in Arab Studies from UC Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

University of California, Berkeley

ARCH 170A: An Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism: Antiquity to the Renaissance (Graduate Student Instructor)

ARCH 170B: An Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism from 1750 to the Present (Graduate Student Instructor, 2 terms)

ED4A: Design & Activism (Lead Graduate Student Instructor, 2 terms)

TU Dortmund (Visiting Scholar 2015)

DAAD Visiting Scholar, TU Dortmund, Research Project: “Intercultural Dialogue Towards Reclaiming Public Space Within Metropolitan Areas”

German Jordanian University (Full-time Faculty 2012-2016)

Understanding the Built Environment (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

History and Theory of Modern and Contemporary Architecture (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

Architecture Design Studio (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

Urban Design Studio (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

Fundamentals of Design Studio (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

University of Jordan (Part-time Faculty 2011)

History of Cities & City Planning (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

Urban Planning Studio (Undergraduate, Sole Instructor)

Public Speaking

Graduate Student Speaker for the ORIAS Speakers Bureau, U.C. Berkeley. Presentation: “Borders and the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan” (A total of 12 talks to students from middle school to community college in the Bay Area and North California)

Books

Alnajada, Heba, Mohammad Aljabi, Liyan Jabi, Christoph Lueder, and Alexandru Malaescu, eds. Mapping Jabal Al-Nathif. Barcelona: Agpograf, 2014.