Prof. James Wescoat

Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture and Geography - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Prof. James Wescoat is an emeritus professor of landscape architecture and geography in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was also a co-director of the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. He conducts research on the historical geography of water in South Asia, from the scale of gardens to cities, regions, and river basins. He is the author of books and articles on Mughal gardens and modern water management in northern India and Pakistan. James taught courses on “Islamic Architecture and the Environment,” “Islamic Gardens and Geographies,” “Water in Planning, Policy, and Design,” “Disaster-Resilient Design,” and various landscape and urbanism workshops in India and the U.S.

Dr. Abubakr Muhammad

Associate Professor - Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, LUMS

Dr. Abubakr Muhammad is the founding Director of the Center for Water Informatics & Technology (WIT) at LUMS. His research interests are the intersection of technology, society, and the environment with an emphasis on human-water systems, agricultural robotics, and the role of AI in studying complex dynamical systems.

Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Khan

Associate Professor - Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS

Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz N. Khan is specializing in South Asian visual culture, particularly Mughal and Sikh art, at LUMS. Her expertise extends to colonial architecture in Punjab and the influence of British art education policies on local craftsmanship, as well as South Asian heritage and culture historiography.

Dr. Fazilda Nabeel

Adjunct Faculty - Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS

Dr. Fazilda Nabeel is the Coordinator for the United Nation’s Living Indus Initiative that aims to focus on the ecological restoration of the Indus from its source to its delta to prepare the Indus Basin in the face of climate change. Fazilda is teaching courses on the business case for climate action as visiting faculty at LUMS University. She has completed her Ph.D in Development Studies from the University of Sussex (UK) with a research focus on the political ecology of groundwater (non) governance in the Indus Basin of Pakistan. Fazilda has consulted widely for the Punjab Government as well as international agencies and NGOs on a breadth of policy issues in the water- environment-development nexus.

Dr. Mariam Chughtai

Assistant Professor - Syed Ahsan Ali and Syed Maratib Ali School of Education, LUMS

Dr. Mariam Chughtai is Director, National Curriculum Council of Pakistan. She has a Doctorate and two Masters degrees in Education from Harvard University. As a teaching fellow, she taught several courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, along with Negotiations at Harvard Law School and Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. Upon her return to Pakistan, she set up the School of Education at LUMS where she is now a tenure track faculty member. Dr. Chughtai is also the Pakistan Director for Harvard Mittal South Asia Institute. As part of her family business, she serves on the Board of Directors for Chughtai Lab, Pakistan's largest private healthcare network.