Dr. Asma Mehan
Dr. Asma Mehan is a researcher, educator, and architect working at the intersection of architectural humanities and critical urban studies. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University College of Architecture. She is the author of the books “Tehran: from Sacred to Radical” (London: Routledge, 2022) and “Kuala Lumpur: Community, Infrastructure, and Urban Inclusivity” (London: Routledge, 2020). Dr. Mehan is recently appointed as the Coordination Team (CT) leader of the Young Academics network of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP YA).
Her scholarly and creative works are focused on architectural humanities and critical urban studies. She was previously awarded four highly selective individual fellowships and grants, including the Scientific Employment Stimulus Individual fellowship funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Urban Citizenship Fellowship supported by the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) among others.
She achieved her Ph.D. in the “Architecture, History, and Project” program, in October 2017, from the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). After finishing her Ph.D., she worked as a senior researcher at various European universities such as the University of Porto, Leiden University, TU Delft, Politecnico di Torino and Berlin ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics. She has taught at TU Delft and Politecnico di Torino. She has been invited as a guest lecturer at various institutions, including TU Munich, ZK/U Berlin Center for Art and Urbanistics, University of Porto, and Deakin University, Melbourne (Australia). She completed visiting research stays in Australia (Deakin University, Melbourne, 2016–2017) and at EPFL University, Lausanne, Switzerland (2017), and was a researcher in resident at the ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, 2019.
Mehan has received several awards from prestigious institutions, such as AESOP, EAHN (European Architectural History Network), Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), and ZK/U Berlin Center for Art and Urbanistics, as well as the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB).
Her primary research and teaching interests include architectural humanities, critical urban studies, spatial planning, and heritage studies. She has authored over fifty articles and essays in scholarly books and professional journals in multiple languages, such as English, Persian, and Italian, on critical urban studies, architecture, urban planning, housing, and heritage studies. She has also been a member of several international scientific committees and conferences. Her research reaches academic audiences through international exhibitions, artistic venues, policy toolkits, visual media, journalistic blogs, and online outlets.
