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Prof. Dina Shehayeb

Prof. Dina Shehayeb is the founding Program Director; she is an architect/urban designer and researcher. She earned her M.Sc. in housing and neighbourhood design from Cairo University in 1989, and her Ph.D. from UWM in USA in 1995 focusing on Environment & Behaviour Studies in Architecture and Urban Design. She is specialized in research-based design, she works on bridging the gap between the physical environment and its socio-cultural and psychological dimensions. As an academic as well as the principal of her private practice Shehayeb CONSULT, Prof. Shehayeb has taught and supervised theses in multiple universities nationally and internationally since 2000, participated in multiple studies and projects with national and international institutions, and served on multiple scientific committees including the UN-Habitat Advisory Boards and has more than 30 publications in scientific journals, conference proceedings and books.

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Director Word

Egypt has one of the most rapidly transforming urban scenes. Egyptian cities and towns also include a wide range of diversity in urban form and patterns. Its layers of heritage are reflected in its cities and neighbourhoods as well as in people’s lifestyles. Cairo is a megacity with a population of an estimated 20+ million residents offering a ripe example of fast-growing mega cities with diverse urban experiences and a vibrant social life that becomes our main lab in the learning experience of any student. ARUD international beginnings are sustained through the semester abroad with original partners and new partners in the EU. EU professors continuously engage in teaching, reviewing and directing ARUD student work. The rate of urban development and transformation, the underlying socio-cultural and economic patterns, the tensions and linkages between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, the social resilience and potential for adaptability, the continuous experimentation with laws and regulations, makes studying it a fascinating and challenging endeavour and requires heuristic frameworks that are at the same time integrative, multidisciplinary, socio-culturally sensitive, and technically agile.