Ozayr Saloojee is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design. Prior to his teaching in the United States, he studied, taught and practiced architecture in Ottawa receiving his B.Arch and Post-professional M.Arch (Theory and Culture) from Carleton University. Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, Professor Saloojee’s research and academic interests focus on culturally and politically contested urban landscapes and how architecture and urbanism facilitate (or deny) issues of identity and belonging. He has presented his work and research at conference venues in Kyoto, London, Cape Town and Istanbul. He has been published through invited journal submissions (ArteEast Quarterly, Nexus), edited book chapters (Reading Spiritualities, Ashgate Press, 2008) and currently has two manuscript projects in development. His interdisciplinary design studio teaching has included collaborations with Fine Arts, Religious Studies and Landscape Architecture, as well as institutional partnerships with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Professor Saloojee’s teaching (awarded and funded at both regional and national levels) explores the issue of resilient infrastructures and landscapes.

He also leads the Istanbul Study Abroad Program at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design - a joint initiative with the School of Architecture and Department of Landscape Architecture that recently completed its inaugural program offering in the spring of 2013 and included the opening of a new building, studio and study center in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. Professor Saloojee’s current academic work includes a research project on identity politics and urban space in Cape Town and a long-term initiative with the Department of Landscape Architecture and the city of Duluth (Minnesota) that investigates questions of resiliency, adaptation and failure across large-scale urban, water, energy and climatic systems.