Researchers
We bring different perspectives to the table, but we’re united by a love for purposeful work, thoughtful design, and real connection.
Christina wong
Christina Wong is a Mauritian textile researcher and currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History at Utrecht University where her thesis explores textile ecologies by tracing the stories embedded in plant fibers and craft practices, with a focus on their entanglements with colonial histories. She previously worked as an educator in the Design department at Birzeit University and as a designer in Mauritius and India. Her practice combines material research, situated techniques, and collaborative approaches to textiles.
Mira Idrees
Mira Idries is a Palestinian architect and researcher based in Jerusalem. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering from Birzeit University and an MA in Architectural History from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She currently serves as an instructor in the Department of Interior Design at Birzeit University. She previously taught as an instructor at the Arab American University and worked as a research and teaching assistant in the Department of Architectural Engineering at Birzeit University. Her work has been published in Arab Urbanism, Urban Transcripts, and in the edited volume Reclaiming Colonial Architecture (RIBA). Her research interests span architectural history, pedagogy, landscape, movement, and questions of spatial and cultural representation within the Palestinian context. She also has professional experience in architecture, having worked as an architect at several architectural practices in Jerusalem.
Mai Al Zeer
Mai Al Zeer holds a Master of Human Settlements from KU Leuven and a bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering from Al-Quds University. Her research interests span spatial justice and the (de)colonial ethnographies of space and place. She is currently an instructor in the Interior Design Program at Birzeit University and a researcher in the CREATE Project, where her contribution focuses on spatializing Palestinian crafts through design education.
Yara Hussein
Yara Hussein is an architect, researcher, and currently an instructor at the Department of Design, Faculty of Art, Music, and Design at Birzeit University. She holds a Master’s degree in Advanced Architecture Design from the University of Nottingham. Her research interests include architectural phenomenology, architectural tectonics, interactive design, and the intersections of spatiality and objects.
Christine Alloush-Hadid
Christine Alloush-Hadid is a Palestinian researcher and educator, born and raised in Ramallah, Palestine. Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture from Birzeit University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Planning - Humans and the Built Environment- at the University of Waterloo, Canada. With over seven years of teaching experience at Palestinian universities, she currently serves as a Teaching Assistant in urban design while pursuing her PhD. Her interdisciplinary research explores the relationships between people, place, memory, and power through humanistic, critical, and decolonial approaches. Focusing on Palestine, her work examines oral history, narrative, storytelling, and artistic practices as forms of knowledge production and epistemic resistance. Through these approaches, she seeks to foreground Palestinian voices and lived experiences, challenge dominant and colonial narratives and processes of erasure, and create alternative ways of representing place, memory, belonging, and justice.
Ibrahim Khamis
Is an architect, designer, and educator whose work spans architecture, product design, and material-based practice. He holds Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Technion and currently teach at Birzeit University, where he contributes to design education through studio-based teaching, material exploration, and hands-on approaches to making. His practice is shaped by an interest in the relationship between design, craft, and cultural heritage, with a particular focus on Palestinian material culture and traditional craftsmanship. Through his work, he explores how inherited knowledge, materials, and making processes can be reinterpreted within contemporary design while remaining connected to their cultural and material contexts.
Samara Abu Ghannam
Samara Abu Ghannam is a designer and educator based in Palestine, teaching Interior Design at Birzeit University. With a background in Architectural Engineering and Industrial Design, her practice explores the intersection of craft, design, and cultural identity, with a particular interest in materials, handmade processes, and furniture design. Her work brings contemporary design methods into dialogue with traditional Palestinian making practices, combining new techniques with handcrafted processes to explore innovative forms, structures, and material applications. Through collaboration with local artisans, she seeks to preserve and reinterpret heritage while allowing craft to evolve as a living practice. Through both teaching and making, she is interested in connecting cultural memory with contemporary design and sustainable production.