# Jala Makhzoumi

Jala Makhzoumi (Arabic: جالا مخزومي; born 1949) is an Iraqi-Lebanese landscape architect, academic, and activist. She taught environmental engineering for 15 years at the University of Technology in Baghdad. Makhzoumi is a founding member of the Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management program at the American University of Beirut, where she currently serves as an adjunct professor. Her research covers subjects including landscape design, sustainable urban greening and postwar recovery strategies. Makhzoumi has co-authored several books including "Ecological Landscape Design and Planning: The Mediterranean Context" and "The Right to Landscape: contesting landscape and human rights." In 2023, she was elected vice president of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). She is the Middle East Chapter president, of the IFLA. Makhzoumi is also a co-founder of 'UNIT44', a Lebanon-based design and planning practice of landscape architecture and urban design.

## Early life and education

Makhzoumi was born in Iraq in 1949 to an Iraqi Kurdish mother and a Lebanese father. She grew up in Baghdad and spent most of her summers in Lebanon, specifically in Dhour El Choueir. In 1971, she enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Baghdad to study architecture. After graduation, she moved to the United States to attend Yale University, where she received a master's degree in environmental design.

## Research, career, and activism

After graduating from Yale, Jala returned to Baghdad, where she taught environmental sciences at the University of Technology for fifteen years. During this period, Makhzoumi researched the intersectionality of ecology and landscape, with a primary focus on vernacular settlements and practices invoked by local Iraqi communities. The Iran–Iraq War severely influenced Makhzoumi's ability to travel, and the first Gulf War of 1990 forced her to relocate from Iraq. After her relocation, she decided to pursue a PhD at the University of Sheffield and complete her dissertation in landscape architecture.
Whilst in the United Kingdom, Makhzoumi developed a methodology for ecological landscaping and applied it to the context of Northern Cyprus. Her work intersected heavily with that of Gloria Pungetti, an Italian scholar and landscape architect. This collaboration eventually led them to publish two books: "Ecological Landscape Design and Planning" (1999) and "The Right to Landscape" (2016). In 2001, Makhzoumi joined the American University of Beirut (AUB) where she co-founded the BS in Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management. She worked as both a professor and program coordinator from the Fall of 2001 to the Spring of 2007.
Makhzoumi was involved with the "AREC Rural Technology Park: Climate Change and Sustainable Livelihoods in Lebanon" project.
While in Lebanon, she worked with a team from AUB, to revive the Erbil Inner Green Project. AUB neglected the project due to security reasons. In the proposal for the Erbil Inner Greenbelt, AUB aimed to curb the expansion of the city and limit urban development, enhance the local microclimate, and provide a recreational landscape for residents.
Her work as an activist includes advocating for Dalieh of Raouche to be a public space for local communities in Beirut in the post-Civil War era of Lebanon and protesting against other types of private development.