Honorary Professor of Practice, Sumayya Vally is the founder and principal of Counterspace – an award-winning design, research and pedagogical practice searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions—both rooted and diasporic. An internationally acclaimed design practitioner, Vally is the Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (January – May 2023), a Fellow of The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and was selected by the World Economic Forum to be one of its Young Global Leaders and as a TIME100 Next list honoree. She serves on several directorial boards in order to support new networks of knowledge in the arts. Vally has taught and lectured widely; as Pelli Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; as lead of a new masters’ programme, Hijra, at the Royal College of Art; and as an Honorary Professor of Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture.