In my professional life, I’ve been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to research and engage with a number of fascinating topics related to how humans build cities. Coming to Beirut as a graduate student in 2007, the rapid transformation of the urban environment captured my attention and resulted in a master’s thesis that tried to understand how the Lebanese state facilitated real estate developers through changes in the legal and institutional framework. The results of the thesis were published in a journal article written with my fantastic supervisor Prof. Mona Fawaz. Continue reading →