Steering Committee

Selma Al-Radi is an Iraqi archaeologist, and a research associate at New York University. She has worked in Yemen since 1977. In 1983, she undertook the restoration of the 16th century Madrasa al-Amiryah in the town of Rada', and is currently overseeing the final phase of the project and the restoration of the internal wall paintings. Also in Yemen, she is now completing the rehabilitation of the complex of Imamate palaces as the National Museum in Sanaa, and preparing the catalogue of the museum collections for publication. Dr. al-Radi has excavated in Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, Cyprus, Syria, and Yemen, and has published in Arabic and English. She was a member of the 1986 and 1995 Award Technical Reviews, and of the 1989, 1992, and 1998 Steering Committees.

Peter Eisenman is an American architect and educator. He is the Irwin S. Chanin Distinguished Professor at The Cooper Union in New York City and the principal of Eisenman Architects. Among his built projects are the Wexner Centre for the Arts and Fine Arts Library at the Ohio State University in Columbus, completed in 1989, and a project for social housing at Check-Point Charlie in Berlin. He has built two office buildings in Tokyo, a convention centre in Columbus, Ohio, and the Aronoff Centre for Design and Art in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Eisenman was the founder and director of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, an international think-tank for architectural ideas, from 1967 to 1980. Mr. Eisenman served as a member of the 1995 Award Master Jury.

Adhi Moersid is an Indonesian architect in private practice with PT Atelier 6 Architects, where he is actively involved in the design, planning, and construction of Atelier 6 projects, and senior vice-president of Atelier 6 Holding Company. Mr. Moersid has been honorary chairman of the Indonesian Institute of Architects since 1989, and was deputy chairman of ARCASIA (Architects Regional Council Asia) from 1987 to 1989. He was a lecturer in the School of Design at the Jakarta Institute of Arts from 1970 to 1980, and continues to be an external examiner for several schools of architecture. In 1986, Mr. Moersid received an Honourable Mention from the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Saed Naum Mosque in Jakarta. During the 1992 Award cycle, he served as a member of the Award Master Jury.

Azim Nanji is Special Advisor to the Provost at the Aga Khan University, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa, a joint partnership between His Highness the Aga Khan and the Government of Canada. He was born in Nairobi, Kenya and attended schools in Kenya and Tanzania before graduating from Makerere University in Uganda. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees in Islamic Studies from McGill University in Canada.

Professor Nanji has held several academic and administrative appointments, most recently as Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, where he was also lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies. From 1998 to 2008,

Professor Nanji served as Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. In 1988, he was Margaret Gest Visiting Professor at Haverford College, and from 1989 to 1998 he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at the University of Florida. From 1974 to 1976 he was a Killam Fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Professor Nanji has published numerous books and articles on religious studies, ethics, Islam and Ismailism. His publications include a monograph on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Building for Tomorrow (1994).

Within the Aga Khan Development Network, Professor Nanji serves as a member of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee of the AKU Board of Trustees and the Academic Advisory Committee for the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC), and as member of the Madrasa-based Early Childhood Education Programme in East Africa. He was recently appointed to the first Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Music Awards. He served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998, 2001 and 2016, and was a member of the Master Jury for the Award in 1992.