Short Biography: Jihad Awad is a professor of architecture, currently head of architecture department at Ajman University (AU), UAE. Before joining AU in 2004, he has taught at different Palestinian universities, and was head of architecture department at An Najah University in Nablus, Palestine. He holds Dr.-Ing. from University of Stuttgart, Germany (1996), M. Arch. from Kansas State University, USA (1989), and B.Sc. in Architectural Engineering from Yarmouk University, Jordan (1984). Areas of interest: Urban Design and Conservation; Traditional Arab-Islamic Architecture; Modern and Contemporary Architecture; and Architecture in the GCC. In addition to many research papers and articles, he published two books: “Rural Houses of Palestine” (in Arabic), and “Top International Architects – Design Concepts in Architecture” (in English, four volumes). During the last few years, he was involved in organizing several workshops, and responsible for inviting many international architects to AU, including Charles Jencks, Hans Hollein, Rem Koolhaas, Emilio Ambasz, Ben van Berkel, Rasem Badran, Ma Yansong, Francine Houben, Will Alsop, Ken Yeang, among others. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SYE2llYAAAAJ&hl=en