Prof. Dr. Heba Allah Essam El-Din Khalilis a Professor of Sustainable Urbanism at Department of Architectural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University with an academic and professional experience for more than 15 years. She is also the Senior Coordinator of the Architectural Engineering and Technology AET program at Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. She has pursued scientific research in various fields including community development, participatory evaluation, informal areas development, energy efficiency strategies, sustainable urbanism, affordable housing, quality of life, strategic planning, urban metabolism, urban climate and integrated urban systems with more than 25 publications including books and journal papers. She has supervised a number of MSc and PhD theses in related research domains. She has participated in several national and international conferences, workshops and training courses. She has built a number of international research partnerships focusing on urban metabolism and improving urban micro-climate in highly dense cities through meta-flow analysis, simulation and participatory action research. Her previous research collaborations include a project with IRD (Institute de research et development, France) concerning Urban Regeneration of Public Spaces in Central Cairo and another with TU Berlin concerning Urban Regeneration of Deteriorated Areas. She was the principle investigator in a joint research project with GLOBUS, International Academy at Berlin Freie University concerning Improving Environmental Performance in Informal Areas and Reducing Urban Heat Islands Phenomenon. She is a team leader in the project EcoCitizen World Map/ Urbinsight in collaboration with Ecocity Builders NGO, USA University of California at Berkeley, USA and Mundiapolis University, Morocco. She is also the academic coordinator for the joint activities program with HafenCity University, Hamburg, Germany concerning strategies of climate adaptation and resource efficiency for densely populated urban neighbourhoods. In 2015, she published a book titled: Energy Efficiency in the Urban Environment, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis. In 2016, she was granted a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship to join the SPURS program at MIT, USA, where she conducted research and professional activities. Her work as a SPURS fellow included learning about innovative theories and policies for sustainable urbanism, resource efficiency & related implementation institutions.
She has additional professional experience both as an architect and urban planner in various projects. She is working with international agencies as GIZ in participatory development including informal areas upgrading, capacity development, facilitation and evaluation. She is working for UN-HABITAT in strategic planning for cities and city regions in Egypt and worked for the League of Arab States to prepare an Arab strategy for sustainable development. She has designed a number of private and public buildings. This multidisciplinary experience has supported her academic competence and sense of the real surrounding world.
As an Alumina of SPURS, MIT she continuously seeks partnerships with practitioners/ researchers to support a new planning and design practice for sustainable urbanism in her region.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heba-allah-khalil-68a0853b
Personal webpages: http://scholar.cu.edu.eg/hebakhalil; http://staff.eng.cu.edu.eg/hebakhalil