Dr Hiba Alkhalaf

Overview

Biography

Dr Hiba Alkhalaf is a Syrian-British architect, researcher, and heritage specialist whose work centres on post-conflict recovery, cultural resilience, and community-led conservation across Syria, the wider MENA region, and the UK. She is a Research Fellow at the Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies (CISA), Birkbeck, University of London. She is the Founder and Director of Heritage Voices / Aswat al-Turath, a platform advancing inclusive heritage practice, supporting women heritage practitioners in conflict-affected settings, and strengthening archival and community documentation that foregrounds local narratives linked to archaeological sites and historic places.

Previously, she was a Research Associate in the Department of Classics at King’s College London, where she developed interdisciplinary research linking historic built environments with intangible heritage, traditional knowledge, and community stewardship, including projects in Libya and Tunisia. She is also the co-lead of the award-winning MaLiCH (Managing Libya’s Cultural Heritage) project in Libya, working with local partners to support site management, condition and damage assessment, and the development of management plans, while sustaining crafts, archives, and intangible heritage and positioning heritage as a tool for sustainable futures.
 
Alongside her academic roles, Hiba works as a consultant and adviser to heritage organisations, designing capacity-building programmes, supporting emergency response and safeguarding, producing evaluation reports, and developing action plans and strategies for community-driven heritage and creative-economy recovery. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals and has served as a reviewer for academic journals in the fields of heritage, conservation, and the built environment.

Qualifications

• PhD in Architecture, University of Edinburgh
• Msc Architectural Conservation, University of Edinburgh

Research

Research interests

• Architectural conservation, Heritage management, community engagement, traditional building techniques.

Research overview

Dr Hiba Alkhalaf is a Syrian-British architect, researcher, and heritage specialist whose work centres on post-conflict recovery, cultural resilience, and community-led conservation across Syria, the wider MENA region, and the UK. She is a Research Fellow at the Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies (CISA), Birkbeck, University of London. She is the Founder and Director of Heritage Voices /Aswat al-Turath, a platform advancing inclusive heritage practice, supporting women heritage practitioners in conflict-affected settings, and strengthening archival and community documentation that foregrounds local narratives linked to archaeological sites and historic places.

Previously, she was a Research Associate in the Department of Classics at King’s College London, where she developed interdisciplinary research connecting historic built environments with intangible heritage, traditional knowledge, and local stewardship- including projects in Libya and Tunisia . She is also the co-lead of the award-winning MaLiCH (Managing Libya’s Cultural Heritage) project in Libya, working closely with local partners to manage sites, assess condition and damange, develop management plans, sustain crafts, archives, and intangible heritage, and to position heritage as a tool for sustainable futures.

Alongside her academic roles, Hiba works as a consultant and adviser to heritage organisations, designing capacity-building programmes, supporting emergency response and safeguarding, producing evaluation reports, and developing action plans and strategies for community-driven heritage and creative-economy recovery. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals and has served as a reviewer for academic journals in the fields of heritage, conservation, and the built environment.