Huma Gupta

Huma Gupta is a full-time Lecturer in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT. Gupta holds a PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture and a Master's in City Planning from MIT. Currently, she is writing her first book The Architecture of Dispossession, which is based on her doctoral thesis on state-building and the architectural transformation of migrant reed-mat and mudbrick settlements in mid-century Iraq. Previously, Gupta 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 in the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World, and Thresholds. As a practitioner, she 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. In Fall 2021, Gupta will teach Decolonial Ecologies (graduate seminar) and Dwelling & Building: Cities in the Global South (lecture course). In Spring 2022, she will teach Islamic Architecture and the Environment (graduate seminar). In Fall 2022, Gupta will teach Historiography of Islamic Architecture (graduate seminar) and Building Islam (lecture course). In Spring 2023, she will teach Architecture & The Wealth of Nations (graduate seminar).