Hala Auji is an art historian specialized in the arts of the Islamic world. She holds a PhD in art history from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton, an MA in criticism and theory from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena and a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from AUB. Her book, Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and The American Press in Nineteenth Century Beirut, Leiden: Brill, 2016, explores how Beirut’s nineteenth-century print culture, in its varied visual conventions, uses, and meanings, negotiated local views on social change, cultural heritage, political identity, and modernization reforms. She is currently a Faculty Fellow (2016-17) at AUB’s Mellon Foundation funded Center for Arts and Humanities (CAH), where she is developing curricula and research related to her current project “Disseminating the nahda: al-funun and the Art of the Arabic Periodical.” Her research interests also include the nineteenth century decorative arts in Europe and the Middle East, the history of Islamic manuscript practices, the politics of exhibiting and collecting Islamic Art, global art historiography, design history and theory, and the arts of the book in Asia.