Picking up the Pieces in Post-Conflict Syria: A Discussion of Social and Urban Challenges with Lina Chawaf and Anas Soufan

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents

Lina Chawaf
Fellow, CMES; Fellow at Grubstreet, Memoire Generator; Visitor Fellow, Tufts University, and

Anas Soufan
Associate, CMES; Visiting Professor of Architecture and Historic Conservation, Wentworth Institute of Technology; Coordinator of the project Ancient Aleppo Recovery Master Plan; Artist, Maison des Artistes, Paris

With a career spanning over three decades to give voice to voiceless especially women, Lina Chawaf has had the privilege of working across TV, radio, and print media since 1992. She has created hundreds of TV commercials and numerous clips for UNICEF, and she's been deeply involved in the media landscape, establishing two radio stations in Syria, including Arabesque, where she served as the Program Manager for seven years. Her work has extended to writing for newspapers like Baladna in Syria and Almoustakbal in Canada, as well as magazines such as Shabablek and Sabaya in Syria. Recognized writer for the international media like Washington Post, Globe and Mail, Boston Globe, and so on. As a media consultant with IMS in the Middle East, she's been part of several initiatives, including founding radio stations in conflict zones like Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Training thousands of Arab journalists and media workers. Coaching media leadership in conflict areas. Public speaker in conferences, workshops, and international events. One of her proudest achievements is founding Rozana Radio in Paris, a station supported by international organizations that now operates in Paris, Gaziantep, and Syria. She also served as the President of CMFE, advocating for human rights, women’s rights, and freedom of expression through media. In recognition of her efforts, in fighting for human rights and especially the women ones, she received the 2018 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Award. Additionally, she's shared her knowledge as a teacher at ESJ (Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme) in Paris, France. She got the Nieman Fellowship from Harvard for 2024-25.

Anas Soufan is an assistant professor, artist, architect, and urban planner specialist in the management of historic towns and world heritage sites. From an academic perspective, Anas holds several degrees in history, history of art, historic preservation and architecture design from Syria, France, Switzerland and the United States. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT, Boston, USA) and an Associate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University (CMES, Cambridge, USA). Previously, Anas taught in several universities worldwide and he published, reviewed, translated, and edited books, reports, and articles in several languages; in parallel, Anas has been an advisor, consultant, and specialist-expert for several international organizations including UNESCO, ICOMOS, ARC-WH, AUDI, and so on. In practice, Anas is the founder and CEO of NABNI-H US, based in Boston and Paris. Through this entity, Anas designed and realized artifacts and projects of architecture design, urban design, adaptive reuse, and heritage management in a variety of scale, mainly in France, Syria, and the United States. Anas’ current focus is on the post-war recovery of historic towns and world heritage sites, dealing with the interconnections between the urban and architectural design and the ethical, economic, and sociopolitical aspects of the recovery process. He is advocating for the application of a new eclectic-multivocal approach—a "Participative Scope of Change"—based on innovative understanding of the partnership among public authorities, civil society organizations, and certain international entities. Based on this approach, Anas is a co-founder of the international initiative Fustoq focusing on the post-war recovery of the Ancient city of Aleppo gathering efforts of the Syrian Ministry of Culture, the Syrian Ministry of Local Administration, the Arab Regional Center for World Heritage, ARC-WH, the World Heritage Center of UNESCO, national and international non-governmental organizations including NABNI-H US. In this framework, Anas is the coordinator of the project AARMP, Ancient Aleppo Recovery Master Plan.

Contact: Liz Flanagan