Hayfaa Abou Ibrahim

Hayfaa Abou Ibrahim is a PhD Candidate in Planning at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her research interests sit at the intersection of urban planning, policy, and disaster governance, and she is committed to advancing urban resilience through empirical and comparative research. Her dissertation examines how NGOs collaborate in polycrisis contexts and how disaster policies define - and vary - their roles across different institutional settings. Hayfaa’s doctoral research has recently been awarded the Public Scholars Award (PSI) to support fieldwork in earthquake-affected areas of southeastern Türkiye and post-blast Beirut, and support translating the findings into publicly accessible outputs.

Hayfaa holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, a Master of Architecture from the Université Libanaise, and a Master's in Urban Planning and Policy from the American University of Beirut, where she received a fully funded scholarship. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a research assistant at the Beirut Urban Lab at the American University of Beirut and at UBC. Since joining UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), she has taken on multiple leadership roles in research, teaching, and academic community-building.