Majed Abdulsamad is a Program Associate with the Global Designing Cities Initiative, a multiyear program that developed the Global Street Design Guide and works with cities around the world on street and public space design through Bloomberg’s Initiative for Global Road Safety.

Prior to joining NACTO, Majed worked in the public sector through an internship in the urban design office at the New York City Department of City Planning, where he mainly focused on the effect the technology of driverless cars will have on the future of transportation and public space in New York City. He also worked as an architectural designer for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s architecture studio in Chicago where he focused on mixed-use projects in the Midwest as well as high-rise developments in the Middle East.

Majed received his master’s degree in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University, where he was awarded the Ali Adibi Distinguished Scholarship Fund and was named “Outstanding Student of Class ’17” upon graduation. During his time at Columbia, Majed researched urban design’s role in the reconstruction of Syrian cities and investigated the potential for micro water infrastructure projects to empower refugee communities and form a basis for future growth in informal settlements. His project, The Right to Water, won the Shelter Global Dencity competition and was featured in ArchDaily, the Designing Resilience in Asia competition, and GSAPP newsletters, among others. Majed was born in Damascus, Syria, and has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.