Abeer is an Assistant Minister in the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, focusing on scientific and international affairs. She is on sabbatical from her position of Professor of Urban Morphology, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
Abeer obtained her BSc in urban design and spatial planning in 1999 from Ain Shams University, Cairo. In 2009, she received her Ph.D. from the same university. Since then, she has acted as assistant professor and then an associate professor at Ain Shams University, teaching and supervising multidisciplinary topics in the field of Urban Design. She has worked on several international research projects with international universities. In 2011, she has joined the dual program between Ain Shams University and Stuttgart University, as a teaching staff and academic adviser. She is an author of two books entitled ‘Urban Design Paradigm’ (2015), and “The Unknown Cities” (2016) as well as many scientific papers published in international journals. Her e-mail is abeer.elshater@eng.asu.edu.eg
Abeer have always been interested in urban studies and international cooperation and this motivated her not only to join the RSA but to become actively involved as an Ambassador. She values the global nature of the RSA, and its activities, events and conference as well as its aim and ability to shape policy in the field of regional studies. Abeer wants to focus her work as RSA Ambassador to Egypt on participants from various disciplines in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Administratively, Egypt is divided into twenty-seven governorates, or it is called ‘Muhafazat’ as a designator terms. The seven regions that Egypt has is the highest level of the administrative classification. Muhafazat includes two hundred and seventeen cities. Additionally, some of these cities have not taken the opportunity to be explored from a large number of researchers like the traditional Egyptian cities. The literature discussed the term Unknown Cities or Invisible Cities to describe the crises of being ignored by developers, investors, and decision-makers. Through my role as RSA Ambassador to Egypt aims not only to discuss action plans and organize events about most unknown cities in the Middle East and Northern Africa but also to spread out the RSA during the research work and panels to discover more relevant issues that have not taken as a hot topic in my territories. As an ambassador of RSA for Egypt, it gives me great pleasure to welcome to the regional studies community. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with for any information concerning the Regional Studies Association.