Yasser Elsheshtawy

Yasser Elsheshtawy is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He previously served as a visiting scholar at AGSI. Elsheshtawy has authored more than 70 publications, including Dubai: Behind an Urban Spectacle, a key reference on the city’s urban development. His most recent book is Temporary Cities: Resisting Transience in Arabia. He also edited The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, Modernity, and Development, which received the 2010 International Planning History Society Best Book Award, and Planning Middle Eastern Cities: An Urban Kaleidoscope. Most recently, two chapters on urban development in the Arab world were published in the widely known “City Planning and Urban Design Readers,” which are comprised of key influential texts on urban planning and design.

Elsheshtawy has presented his research at numerous international institutions, such as Washington, DC’s Smithsonian Institute, INALCO Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, Tongji University-Shanghai, Harvard Graduate School of Design, ETH-Zurich, the Louvre Auditorium-Paris, and the Canadian Center of Architecture-Montreal. He was also involved as a consultant with the United Nation’s Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia and the Urban Land Institute in Washington, DC. He was an evaluator for recently announced megaprojects in Riyadh, commissioned by the Riyadh Development Authority, and has been consulted on several other projects in Saudi Arabia.

Elsheshtawy has a PhD in architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a master’s degree in architecture from Pennsylvania State University, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cairo University.