Mona Khechen is an independent urban development planner and researcher, and a part-time faculty member at the American University of Beirut (AUB). She has provided consultancy services to various international organizations (AFD, AKTC, ESCWA, UNDP, UN-Habitat, World Bank) and worked with the private and the non-profit sectors in Lebanon and abroad. Her work portfolio includes a wide range of projects and policy-oriented studies that address the socio-economic and spatial aspects of urban development particularly in contexts of rapid urbanization, post-conflict recovery, poverty, and massive migration and population displacements. She has also guided territorial investments and local development strategies and participated in social impacts assessments and project evaluations. Mona’s work integrates the spatial, social, economic, cultural, environmental, and institutional dimensions of urban development and planning, and advocates strategic, sustainable, inclusive, and participatory interventions and policy responses. Her research interests include socio-spatial inequalities, urban transformations, urban heritage, and cultural landscapes, memory and identity, gentrification, displacement, spatial politics, and social justice. She has BArch from AUB (1991), MSc in Development and Planning from University College London (2000), and a Doctor of Design (PhD equivalent) with a focus on urban heritage and development from Harvard University (2004).