Rawan Alsaffar

Dr. Rawan Alsaffar is a Research Fellow with the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is a landscape architect and urban researcher whose work examines the intersection of water infrastructure, urbanization, and climate adaptation in arid environments. Her current research focuses on how large-scale desalination has reshaped urban landscapes and governance across the Gulf, with particular attention to Kuwait’s water future in a changing climate.

Dr. Alsaffar’s research examines how infrastructure influences both ecological systems and public life. Her current book project advances a new framework for understanding sustainable water management in Kuwait by examining the social, political, and environmental dimensions of water demand and strategies for future conservation. More broadly, her work demonstrates how design research can inform climate policy and resource governance in water-scarce regions.

Dr. Alsaffar has served as a Professor at Northeastern University, where she taught courses on landscape architecture, urbanism, and infrastructure. She has previously held teaching appointments at Harvard University and led research as a fellow at the Harvard Critical Landscapes Design Lab. Before entering academia, she worked in landscape architecture practice, contributing to resilience and climate adaptation projects across the United States, the Middle East, and Africa. 

She earned a Doctor of Design (DDes) in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where she also received a Master of Landscape Architecture and a Master in Design Studies (Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology). She completed her graduate education with the support of a full scholarship from Kuwait's Ministry of Higher Education.