About CIE

Alia researches how online platforms and emerging technologies shape political understanding. A PhD candidate at NYU and co-founder of Decifer Studio, she creates interactive experiences that make complex technologies accessible to broad audiences.

Asem is a writer and journalist from Gaza, Palestine. His reporting documents life under occupation and conflict, preserving memory and testimony in the face of cultural erasure.

Ava studied Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. Her interests include social and cultural history, contested heritage, popular culture and bottom-up approaches to heritage management.

Batuhan studies Tourism Guidance and researches cultural heritage. His experience includes vocational fieldwork in the Marmara region, public guiding and international education projects that use digital tools to preserve and share heritage.

Begüm studies Tourism Guidance and works on the continuation and promotion of Turkish heritage. Her practice combines field tours, local expertise, museum and site research, conferences and sustainable approaches to cultural tourism.

Dev is a software engineer with a background in Computer Science and Interactive Media at NYU Abu Dhabi. His CIE work includes the Dhakira heritage database and the redevelopment of HeritageLab’s digital storytelling platform.

Devaki is an anthropology researcher at the University of Oxford, a designer for TreeRouted and author of HeritageLab’s Kerala Co-Lab. Her work explores material and museum anthropology, indigenous representation, endangered knowledge and South Asian heritage.

Georgia contributes to CIE’s research programme, including collaborative work on ocean heritage and conflict across the organisation’s international network.

Hassan works at the intersection of computer science, interactive media, web development and virtual and augmented reality. Within HeritageLab, he contributes technical skills to digital heritage experiences and platforms.

Léa is a museum-studies researcher with a background in archaeology and rock-art heritage. Her work examines how physical and digital reproductions can make endangered or inaccessible sites available to wider audiences.

Matthew explores film’s ability to produce and represent heritage knowledge. He has worked on TreeRouted, a documentary on the date palm’s global heritage, and contributed research on George Town’s street-food heritage to Future Stories.

Nazlı studies Tourism Guidance and Tourism and Hotel Management. Her work includes heritage research in Istanbul, museum and historical-site tours, and close attention to local lives, traditions and stories.

Niccolò works across arts, museology and curatorship, with a focus on heritage, contemporary art and decolonial practice. A former Dhakira research fellow, he co-edited Future Stories in the Global Heritage Industry.

Nurcan is an Istanbul-based archaeologist who has led CIE field schools and identification missions in Sri Lanka and Tanzania. She also develops sustainable heritage-education programmes and community-based research.

Sarah is a researcher and creative technologist whose practice spans web development, software art, augmented reality and physical computing. Her work explores internet cultures in Palestine and the diaspora and the decolonial potential of new media.

Talal is an award-winning media maker and maritime-heritage researcher. His work combines film, grant development, underwater cultural heritage and 3D photogrammetry, including the Science Malta-supported Project 3D-Q8 in Kuwait.

Umayya is a writer and researcher specialising in cultural policy, identity and future planning. Her experience spans journalism, teaching, cultural institutions and public policy, and she contributes to CIE events, heritage activities and publications.