FACULTY BIO

Najla ALLANI is a Full Professor at the Department of Architecture and Interior Design, College of Engineering (University of Bahrain). She was the first Tunisian woman who has reached the degree of Professor in Architecture in Tunisia. Previously, she held the position of Director of the National School of Architecture and Urbanism and Head of the Research Unit "Methods and Models for the Representation of Architectural Knowledge.” She has also been General Director of the Center of Research, Studies, Documentation, and Information on Women (CREDIF). She graduated from the Technological Institute of Art, Architecture, and Urbanism of Tunis with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1994. She completed her Master's in "Architecturology, Computer Science, and Artificial Intelligence" at the Henri Poincaré University-Nancy (France), and her Ph.D. in Architectural Sciences at the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine in Nancy in 1995 and 1999, respectively. She received the Habilitation Degree to direct research in Architecture from the National School of Architecture and Urbanism (University of Carthage) in 2010. Najla ALLANI is a founder and jury member of the «Mediterranean Mimar Sinan Prize, MED21», a Prize for excellence in architectural design in Mediterranean countries. She is a jury member of the «International Land Award: Nature and Artifice», which aims to reward excellence in this field and recognize the value of significant international projects that contribute to the dialogue between nature and artifice. She is part of the «Haifa Award» jury committee, an architectural prize established by the Interdisciplinary Design, Architecture, and Research Jerusalem association (IDAR-Jerusalem) in 2020 to enhance and save Palestinian heritage. She is a founder member and executive director of the «Fatima Fihria» Prize to promote women's access to education and professional responsibilities in the Mediterranean. In November 2021, representing Tunisia, she was elected Bureau chair of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Committee on Social Policy, Poverty and Gender fourth session. Najla ALLANI has supervised more than 20 master's and Ph.D. students and has published her work in indexed journals and international conferences related to modeling and the formalization of architectural knowledge. She was invited as a keynote speaker in several shared holy places and gender equality conferences. She has also served as a reviewer and evaluator member of several international conferences and journals scientific committees.