Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni has been named a TED Senior Fellow. The TED Fellows program provides support to an international community of 436 visionaries who collaborate across disciplines to create positive change around the world. Fellows are chosen based on their achievements, their strength of character, and on their innovative approaches to solving the world’s tough problems.

Chaouni is a civil engineer and architect creating sustainable built environments in the developing world, particularly in the deserts of the Middle East. In 2014, she gave a TED Talk on her project to uncover and restore the river that runs through her hometown of Fez, Morocco. As TED writes on its blog, “Over the course of years, the river is gradually being uncovered, illegal parking lots are being transformed into playgrounds, trees and other vegetation are being planted, revitalizing Fez as a living city.”

As a Senior Fellow, Chaouni will attend TED events, mentor new Fellows, and continue to share her work with the TED community.

Chaouni is founding principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects. As an assistant professor at the Daniels Faculty, she leads Designing Ecological Tourism (DET) — a collaborative research platform that investigates the challenges faced by ecotourism in the developing world. Her research focuses on design issues in the developing world and methodologies to integrate architecture and landscape, particularly through investigating the potential of green technologies in arid climates.

Chaouni was awarded the Progressive Architecture award in 2007 for her research project “Hybrid Urban Sutures: Filling the Gaps in the Medina of Fez.” From 2006-2007, she was the Aga Khan Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she collaborated in the production of a seminar on desert tourism and a studio on the Medina of Fez. Chaouni is also the Director of the Research Board of DO.CO.MO.MO Morocco, a chapter of an international organization that seeks the preservation of the modern heritage.

For more information on the TED Fellows and Senior Fellows, visit the TEDBlog.