Hiba Bou Akar is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University. Her research focuses on planning in conflict and post-conflict cities, the question of urban violence, and the role of religious political organisations and aid organisations in the making of cities. She is also the founder and director of the Post-Conflict Cities Lab at Columbia University.

Bou Akar is the author of “For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (2018).,” and is currently working on a book manuscript entitled “Sedimentary Urbanization: Displacement, Refugeeness, and the Afterlives of Dead Futures.” Bou Akar also explores these topics artistically through painting and collage.

Bou Akar has also worked as an architect and planner and as a research consultant with local NGOs and international UN organisations in the Middle East. She received her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the American University of Beirut, and a Master in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).