Dr. Bahram Ajorloo, Associate Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the Department of Cultural Heritage Conservation, Islamic Art University of Tabriz, holds a PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology from the University of Tehran. He has extensive experience in archaeological research. Dr. Ajorloo serves on the editorial board of Journal of Research on Archaeometry, and is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Art and Civilaziation of the Orient. His work engages with cultural heritage conservation, tourism culture, and the intersection of archaeological practice and public discourse.
Dr. Azari is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Tehran. Born on April 24, 1934, in Shahsavar (now Tonekabon), he earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Tehran in 1969. From then until his retirement in 1999, he taught courses on Ancient Iran, the Mongol period, the Qajar era, and Medieval History at the universities of Tehran and Isfahan. Dr. Azari’s research focuses on historical geography, Iranian history and culture, and comparative studies. He has authored numerous publications in these fields, contributing significantly to the understanding of Iran’s historical and cultural landscape.
Dr. Ali Yaran is a full professor of Islamic and Landscape Architecture, holding a PhD in Housing Architecture from the University of Glasgow (1997). Since 1987, he has held teaching and research positions at several universities, including the University of Gilan and Iran University of Science and Technology. His expertise encompasses Islamic architecture, Islamic art and philosophy, and landscape anthropology, and he has authored numerous publications in these fields. Dr. Yaran has also served on specialized committees of the Ministry of Science and the Council for the Advancement of Humanities.
Dr. Saeed Haghir, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Tehran, specializes in the history and philosophy of art, with a focus on modern and contemporary architecture. His research particularly addresses Iranian architecture and its cultural, identity-based, and philosophical influences on contemporary architectural practice. His academic interests also include interdisciplinary studies across art, architecture, and culture with a comparative perspective between East and West, as well as themes such as identity and symbolism in architecture, design within historical contexts, environmental psychology, and urban sustainability.
Dr. Alastair Northedge is an archaeologist and historian of Islamic art, and Professor Emeritus at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. His research focuses on the history of architecture and urbanism in the Islamic world, particularly during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods. He has led major projects such as the historical topography of Samarra and conducted extensive fieldwork in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. His main interests lie in early Islamic cities, architecture, and the material heritage of the Near East and Central Asia.
Dr. Yves Porter is Professor of Islamic Art and Art History at Aix-Marseille University, France. His research focuses on Islamic manuscript culture, miniature painting, paper, and the materials and techniques of artistic production in the Persianate world and Islamic India. He studied Oriental languages (Persian, Turkish, Urdu, among others) and art history, and received his PhD in Iranian Studies in 1988 from the Sorbonne Nouvelle. Among his major works are Painters, Paintings and Books: An Essay on Indo-Persian Technical Literature (12th–19th Centuries) and The Glory of the Sultans: Islamic Architecture in India. His main scholarly interests include the history and techniques of paper and print, miniature painting, Islamic architecture of Iran and India, and the study of technical treatises in Islamic art.
badi) is a professor of Architectural History at ENSA Nantes – France. After his master’s degree in architecture (University of Tehran, 2006), he defended a PhD thesis on the architectural history of the Parisian cinemas (University of Strasbourg, 2012), then a Habilitation-HDR (Sorbonne Université, 2024) with a dissertation on Franco-Iranian exchanges in the design of academic campuses between the mid-19th century and the 1970s. His works focus more broadly on the dynamics of transmission and transfer phenomena in architecture and urban planning. He has published 3 books and more than 50 papers, approaching this issue from the perspective of architectural teaching in the 20th century, the history of building types, and the international circulation of architects, models and concepts.
Mohammad Gharipour is Professor and Director of the Architecture Program at the University of Maryland, USA. Her main expertise is in the field of Iranian studies, including: Islamic architecture, Persian gardens, calligraphy and architecture in the Islamic world, Islamic cities, and urban landscapes. His research on synagogues of Iran has been supported by National Endowment for Humanities. Moreover, in the last six years and with the support of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Gharipour has been researching health disparity and the design of community clinics in American cities. Dr. Gharipour is the director and founder of the award-winning International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA), the director and co-founder of the Epidemic Urbanism Initiative, and the president of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Dr. Ilse Sturkenboom is Professor of Islamic Art History at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Her research focuses on the art of the Islamic book, especially Persianate manuscript traditions, and explores cultural and material exchanges between the Islamic world, China, and Europe, with a particular emphasis on decorated paper. She earned her PhD in Islamic Art History and Archaeology in 2016 from the University of Bamberg with a dissertation on illustrated manuscripts of Manṭiq al-Ṭayr (“Conference of the Birds”). Before her appointment in Munich in 2021, she held academic positions in St Andrews, Vienna, and New York. Her ongoing ERC-funded project GLOBAL DECO PAPER investigates the aesthetics, techniques, and meanings of decorated paper in early modern Islamicate manuscripts, highlighting how borders and background ornamentation shaped visual culture.
Mahyar Arefi is a Professor of Planning at the University of Texas at Arlington and received his PhD in planning from the University of Southern California in 1999. Specializing in the areas of urban design theory and practice, he has published extensively on urban design pedagogy and practice, placemaking and bottom-up urbanism. His recent books include: Learning from Informal Settlements in Iran: Models, Policies, Processes & Outcomes and a co-edited volume entitled: “The Palgrave Handbook of Bottom-up Urbanism.” In addition to serving on the editorial boards of many journals and serving as co-editor of Urban Design International, he has been recipient of several awards including the US Department of Housing and Urban Development doctoral dissertation in 1998-99, Goody Clancy's 2005 Faculty Fellowship, and Fulbright Scholarship in 2006.
Dr. Hüseyin Yurttaş is Professor of Turkish-Islamic Art History at Atatürk University in Erzurum, Turkey. His academic journey began with a BA in Art History, followed by MA and PhD degrees from the same university, with his doctoral thesis focusing on the artistic and historical significance of structures in Hasankeyf. His research interests encompass Ottoman and Turkish-Islamic architecture and decoration, particularly in tomb- (turbe) and medrese structures; the ornamentation and design of fountains and water channels; regional traditional textiles and fabrics of the Eastern Black Sea; and the documentation, conservation, and analysis of cultural heritage in Erzurum and its environs.
Dr. Sandra Aube Lorain is a research scholar in Iranian art history specializing in architectural ceramics and ornamentation in fifteenth-century Iran. She holds a PhD from Paris-Sorbonne with a dissertation on the architectural ceramics of the Qara Qoyunlu and Âq Qoyunlu dynasties (c. 1450-1500). She is Chargée de recherche at CNRS, attached to the Centre de recherche sur le monde iranien (CeRMI), and serves as director of the “Études aréales” unit. Her research interests include Timurid and Turkmen art, regional workshop practices, architectural decoration in stucco, wood, and tile, and the interaction of patrons, artisans and regional styles.
