Steering Committee
Aamena Mubarak Bakarmom
PhD Student, Symposium Co-organiser,
College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
​Aamena Bakarmom is in her 3rd year of the Ph.D. program in Technologies of the Built Environment. She is an architect and researcher who is passionate about investigating how technology can develop creative solutions, test, and evaluate the success of interventions to reduce and prevent pollution effects on residential buildings and ensure the safety and quality of life through sustainable design. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University in KSA, a Master of Science degree in Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Hadhramout University in Yemen. Before starting her master's at the Illinois Institute of Technology, she worked as an architecture instructor in the architecture college at Alasala College in KSA.
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Cicek Karatas
PhD Student, PhD Program Administrative Assistant, Symposium Co-organiser,
College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
Cicek Karatas is an architect and interior designer with a professional background gained in both Turkey and Italy. She started her Ph.D. at IIT in 2022. Cicek received her Bachelor of Architecture from Istanbul Kultur University in 2014 and her M.Sc. degree in Architectural Design from the Politecnico di Milano in 2019. Her master's thesis project focused on the transformation of TOKI settlements in Turkey, aiming to improve these social housing neighborhoods by utilizing existing structures. Currently, her research revolves around developing adaptive reuse strategies in the Anthropocene era. Her priority is to take immediate action in architecture by reducing, reusing, and recycling, addressing environmental concerns. Recently, she was awarded the Lindsay Jones Memorial Research Fund grant for her project titled "Documenting the Cultural Significance of Religious Buildings Damaged by the Hatay Earthquake: A Project for Preserving Heritage and Advancing Spiritual and Cultural Sustainability."
Alejandro Saldaña Perales
PhD Candidate, Symposium Co-organiser,
College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
Alejandro Saldaña Perales is an architect currently pursuing his PhD in Architecture at the CoA. He received his B.A. in Architecture (2011) with honors at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Monterrey, México. He earned his Master of Science in Architecture (2018) at the CoA with his thesis titled "The Latin American Export: Implementing Latin American urban strategies to redevelop and reconstruct Bronzeville. Currently, he is a Vinci Scholar and his PhD research deals with the politics of private parks in the Near South Side of Chicago. Also, he has collaborated with the Mies van der Rohe Society, the Chicago Architecture Center, the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) 2018, and various other local institutions, and is a student member of the Society of Architectural Historians.
PhD Student, Symposium Co-organiser,
College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology
Sasha Zanko
Sasha graduated in architecture and urban planning at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. She holds a Master's degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is an architect with work experience in cultural management and curatorial practices, understanding architecture as a far-reaching discipline with strong social and cultural influences. She has been leading numerous transnational cultural projects involved in discussions about new urban concepts in the Netherlands and Croatia. For the last eight years of her career, Sasha was associated with the IIT College of Architecture, managing the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, a program that recognizes the best architecture in America. Since 2022, it has been part of the doctoral program of the IIT College of Architecture. Her research called New! Coastal Ecologies (N!CE) is positioned within the intersection of spatial and social studies disciplines, establishing a link between architecture and leisure culture.
