Huma Gupta
Huma Gupta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at MIT, where she is affiliated with the the Aga Khan Program of Islamic Architecture, History, Theory & Criticism of Architecture group, and the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. As an architectural historian, urban policy expert, and filmmaker, she specializes in the history and theory of informality, forced migration, and sustainable architecture in the global south. Dr. Gupta's first book project The Architecture of Dispossession theorizes the relationship between state-building and dispossession through architectural transformations of migrant reed and clay dwellings in 20th century Iraq. And her second book project Dwelling and the Wealth of Nations historicizes the macroeconomic calculation debates between economic statisticians from Iraq, India, the US, UK, and other countries regarding the economic value of rural housing in the 20th century.
Dr. Gupta holds a PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture and a Master's in City Planning from MIT. Previously, she was the Neubauer Junior Research Fellow at Brandeis University, Humanities Research Fellow at New York University-Abu Dhabi, and International Dissertation Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Council. Her work has been published by the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World, Yale University Press, Intellect Books, and Thresholds. Dr. Gupta's courses include Dwelling & Building: Cities in the Global South (lecture course), Archive Fever: Theory and Method (seminar), Decolonial Ecologies (seminar), Climate Futures, Cities Past (Filmmaking workshop), Earth, Reed & Water (seminar), Historiography of Islamic Architecture + Art (seminar), and Architecture & the Wealth of Nations (seminar).
As a practitioner, Dr. Gupta has worked on infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, municipal planning in Syria, eviction prevention and homelessness in the greater Boston area, and humanitarian response to housing needs for persons displaced due to climate, conflict, and development projects around the world. And she is currently producing a feature documentary film titled 'She Was Not Alone' about a nomadic woman fighting to stay with her beloved animals in the rapidly disappearing Iraqi marshes. The film project, directed by Hussein al-Asadi, has received awards from the 80th Venice Film Festival's Final Cut Lab, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Doha Film Institute, Arab Center for Arts and Culture, Red Sea Film Festival, El Gouna Film Festival, and was a finalist for the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. It is scheduled to premiere in late 2024.