Rabya Alfadl was raised in Saudi Arabia and educated in the USA. She brings a whole host of skills and experience as a consultant working between Europe and the Middle East. Alfadl has has worked in marketing, brand management, research design and strategic development in both the public and the private sector with some of [...]

Cathy Giangrande is a special advisor to the cultural sector with a focus on world heritage sites and museums. Besides over 30 years of fundraising for these sectors globally, she has worked as a conservator and research scientist in museums and participated on numerous underwater archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean. She is a trustee of [...]

Richard Wilding is an advisor to the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Culture. He works as a consultant, curator, filmmaker and writer specialising in heritage, cultural identity and history working on books, films, cultural events and exhibitions in Saudi Arabia, Iraqi, Kurdistan, Iraq and North-East Syria. Since 2012, he has been Creative Director of Gulan, a charity [...]

Juma Al Darmaki is a Emirati writer and researcher. He is head of the Museums and Collections Unit at the Zayed Centre for Studies and Research, affiliated to the Emirates Heritage Club.

Dr Alison Ohta is the director of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. She completed her doctoral thesis at SOAS, University of London, on bindings of the Mamluk period (1250–1516). She has lectured and published widely on the subject. Her forthcoming article in a volume of essays in honor of Professor Doris Behrens-Abouseif [...]

Qaisra has a degree in Law from Magdalene College, Cambridge University and an MPhil in Oriental Studies also from Cambridge University. After working for many years in financial consulting, she left to pursue the arts, acquiring an MA in Islamic Art and Architecture from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She [...]