Steering Committee

H.E. Sheikha Mai Bint Mohammed Al Khalifa is chairperson of the Governing Board of Arab Regional Center for World Heritage. She previously served as President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities from 2014 to 2022 and Minister of Culture from 2010 to 2014, Minister of Culture and Information from 2008 to 2010, and Assistant Undersecretary for Culture and National Heritage at the Ministry of Information.

Sheikha Mai is the founder of the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture and Research, and President of its Board of Trustees. An NGO that was established in Muharraq in 2002, the Centre has since hosted over 500 speakers, philosophers, poets and thinkers, who have presented their thoughts in the weekly lecture programme.  It has conserved and rehabilitated over 25 traditional Bahraini houses and spearheaded the urban regeneration of the historic city of Muharraq.  Under Sheikha Mai’s patronage and leadership the Revitalization of Murrraq received the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

She was listed as One of the 50 Most Influential Women in the Arab World by Forbes magazine in 2008. She was awarded the Watch Award by the World Monument Fund in 2015 – the first Arab personality to receive the award – in recognition of the singular role she has played in the preservation and protection of culture and heritage in Bahrain.  In 2017 she was made Special Ambassador of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

Sheikha Mai has published a number of books and articles including Charles Belgrave: Biography and Diary (The Arab Publication Establishment, 2000), 100 Years of Education in Bahrain: The Early Years of Establishment (The Arab Publication Establishment, 1999), Mohammed Bin Khalifa 1813–1890: The Legend and the Parallel History (Shaikh Ebrahim Center for Culture & Research, 2014) and The Qarmations: From Concept to State (Shaikh Ebrahim Center for Culture & Research, 2019), among others. She received a master’s in political history from Sheffield University, United Kingdom.

Meisa Batayneh is the Founder and Principal architect of maisam architects & engineers, which was established in 1986 with offices in Amman and Abu Dhabi.  Ms. Batayneh got her degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington. Over her long and distinguished career, Ms. Batayneh has led multi-disciplinary teams on large-scale international and regional projects in the USA, Pakistan, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE.  In addition to her passion for applying creativity, design, and innovation to enhance the built environment, she is actively engaged in social initiatives through national and international commissions and boards.

Ms. Batayneh was selected as a member of Amman Commission, which was entrusted with developing the greater Amman Masterplan.  She is a founding member of the Jordan Green Building Council and the Middle East Leadership Association. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees at the King Abdullah II Center for Excellence.  She was the first president of Jordan’s Business and Professional Women’s Association and served as a jury member on the Women in Business Cartier Awards.  She was recognized as the Leading Arab Woman Architect by the Federation of Arab Architects and Engineers.

Maisam’s work has won numerous global awards, including the ArchitzerA+ Popular Choice Award in 2015, LEAF Award in 2014 (for “A Gateway to Petra”), and multiple Arabian Property Awards.  Maisam’s work was also shortlisted for the World Architectural Festival (WAF) for the “Aqaba Bus Terminal” in 2009, “A Gateway to Petra” in 2012 and the “Petra Museum” in 2015. Maisam won the World Architecture Festival’s Future Projects for “School in a Park” in 2019.

Ms. Batayneh joined the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in January 2020.  She served as a member of the regional jury for Middle East Africa and is a Jury member of the Global LafargeHolcim Awards.  Ms. Batayneh served on the Master Jury for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2019.

Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor of Philosophy and Francophone Studies at Columbia University and the Director of the Institute of African Studies.  An alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Professor Diagne holds a PhD in Philosophy from Sorbonne University. Prior to his appointment at Columbia, Professor Diagne taught philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, for twenty years before joining Northwestern University in 2002 as a professor in the departments of Philosophy and Religion, with an affiliation to the Program of African Studies.

His fields of research and teaching include history of philosophy, history of logic and mathematics, Islamic philosophy, African Literature and Philosophy.  His publications include: Boole, l’oiseau de nuit en plein jour (1989), a study of George Boole’s algebra of logic; Islam and the Open Society: Fidelity and Movement in Muhammad Iqbal’s Thought (2001); Léopold Sédar Senghor, l’art africain comme philosophie (2007).  He is the author of African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, and the Idea of Negritude (Seagull Books, 2011), The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa (Dakar, Codesria, 2016), Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with Western Tradition (New York, Columbia University Press, 2018). In Search of Africa(s). Universalism and Decolonial Thought (co-author of the dialogue: Jean-Loup Amselle), Cambridge, UK & Medford, MA, Polity Press, 2020.  Professor Diagne is co-director of Ethiopiques, a Senegalese journal of literature and philosophy, and is on the editorial board of Présence Africaine (Paris), among several other scientific institutions.

Among Professor Diagne’s honours are Chevalier dans l’Ordre national du Lion, from the Government of Senegal, as well as Grand Croix dans l’Ordre national du Mérite and Officier de l'Ordre National des Arts et Lettres from the French government.  An associate member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Professor Diagne also served on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Master Jury in 2010.

Marina Tabassum is the principal of Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), founded in 2005 and based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She graduated in 1995 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and co-founded URBANA the same year. Notable projects from the partnership include the Independence Monument of Bangladesh and Liberation War Museum, which was completed in 2013. The project “A5 Pavilion Apartment” was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004.

Ms. Tabassum is the Academic Director at the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements. She received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich in 2020. She has taught advanced design studios at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Technical University Delft in The Netherlands, the University of Texas and at BRAC University in Bangladesh. 

Marina Tabassum was named among the top ten thinkers of the world in 2020 by Prospect magazine, (United Kingdom), recognised for creating buildings in tune with their natural environments while embracing the design challenges posed by the environment. She founded and chaired F.A.C.E Bangladesh, a foundation dedicated to helping climate victims and ultra-low-income communities of the coastal areas of Bangladesh by providing 200 square feet (18.5 square metres) mobile modular houses designed by her office MTA.

Ms. Tabassum is a member of the Board of Directors of Prokritee, a fair-trade organisation that employs thousands of Bangladeshi women artisans through the export of hand-crafted products all over the world.

In 2004, Ms. Tabassum received the Ananya Awar, which recognises exceptional achievements of women in Bangladesh. She also received the Jameel Prize in 2018, which was hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is the first architect to win the Prize, which celebrates art and design from the Islamic world. She received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 for the Bait ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka. Ms. Tabassum served as a member of the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture Steering Committee.