Azra Akšamija, Ph.D. is an artist and architectural historian. She is an Associate Professor in the MIT Department of Architecture, where she directs the Art, Culture and Technology program and the Future Heritage Lab. Her work explores the destruction of cultural infrastructures within the context of conflict, migration, and forced displacement. Akšamija authored Mosque Manifesto (2015) and Museum Solidarity Lobby (2019). She is the editor of Architecture of Coexistence: Building Pluralism (2020) and co-editor of Design to Live: Everyday Inventions form a Refugee Camp (2021). Her work has been exhibited in leading international venues, including the in Venice, Liverpool, Valencia, and Manila, Museums of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Belgrade, and Ljubljana, Queens Museum of Art in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts London, and the Jewish Museum Berlin. Akšamija holds master’s degrees from Graz Institute of Technology (2001) and Princeton University (2004), and a Ph.D. from MIT (2011). She received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013, the Art Award of the City of Graz in 2018, and an honorary doctorate from the Montserrat College of Art (2020).