TEAM + RESEARCH
Dr. Shira Wilkof
Assistant Professor / Head of the Research Group
Shira is a historian of modern landscape, urban planning, and the environment. Her research and teaching interests include transnational history of spatial expert knowledge, environmental history of design, infrastructure studies, and Palestine/Israel landscape production. A central question that drives her work is how the complex relations within the design disciplines—and the multiplicity of professional voices—shape spatial realities. She holds a PhD in History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism at UC Berkeley (2017); a M.Sc. in Urban and Regional Planning at the Technion (2011); and a B.A. in History and Geography at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2008).
[Mail] shirawi@technion.ac.il
Dr. Ronit Cohen-Seffer
Lab Manager
Ronit is the lab manager and postdoctoral research associate. Her PhD focused on “The Paleogeography of the Southern Carmel Coastal Plain during the Late Pleistocene – Holocene” (University of Haifa). She was a postdoctoral fellow at the GLOWA-JR project and contributed to the “Urban Ecology” chapter at the “Assessing the state of Israel’s Nature” HAMAARAG.
[Mail] ronitco@technion.ac.il
Yonat Rein-Sapir
Postdoctoral Fellow
Yonat‘s research focuses on the implementation gaps of waste management policies in Israel. It examines the relationship between the central government and local stakeholders in the field, highlighting how inequality impacts the ability to enforce these policies. She holds a Bachelor’s degree (Cum Laude) in Business Management and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, a Master’s degree (Magna Cum Laude) in Public Policy and a PhD in Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
[Mail] yonat.rein@mail.huji.ac.il
Samadar Aukal
Ph.D. Student
Samadar‘s research introduces the interrupted Palestinian urban fabric as the “Large Village”- a new typology of liminality situated in the undefined space between urban and rural. It analyzes the dynamics of Israeli colonization alongside indigenous culture and their impact on the urban/rural landscape, while offering an initial scholarly examination of this conspicuous spatial phenomenon and contributing to the understanding of other indigenous urban typologies worldwide, which experience comparable disruptions but have yet to receive proper recognition. She holds a master’s degree in City Design at the Royal College of Art London (2021), and a bachelor’s degree in Architecture (B.Arch) at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (2017).
[Mail] samadaraukal@campus.technion.ac.il
Shir Malka
Ph.D. Student
Shir‘s research examines vegetal agency in Israel/Palestine’s shrublands and grasslands, ecologically significant yet historically marginalized. It foregrounds these landscapes as dynamic ecological and socio-political actors, showing how their entanglements with human practices illuminate evolving human/nature relations in the Anthropocene. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (2021).
[Mail] shir.malka@campus.technion.ac.il
Daphna Kushnir
M.Sc. Student
Daphna’s study critically examines how Israel’s current planning system engages with heritage preservation under contemporary development pressures. Focusing on the historic Baron’s Moshavot, it raises questions about historic values, collective heritage, and hierarchies of belonging within the national community. She holds a Master’s degree in diplomacy from Tel Aviv University and a P. Engineer degree (Cum Laude) in Landscape Architecture from Rupin Academic Center.
[Mail] daphweiss@gmail.com
Adi Koren
M.Sc. Student
Adi’s research examines the “Extinction of Experience” (EoE) by utilizing children’s media as a longitudinal lens for tracing the evolution of human-nature interactions. Treating cultural artifacts as a reflection of societal discourse, her work provides long-term data on EoE trends over the last century. Through the integration of computational text analysis and Large Language Models (LLMs), she identifies and maps these thematic shifts across large-scale datasets, aiming to deepen our understanding of the changing relationship between society and the natural world. She holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (B.L.A.) from the Technion (2025).
[Mail] adi.koren@campus.technion.ac.il
ALUMNI
Dr. Yara Sa’di Ibraheem
Postdoctoral Fellow
Yara is a human geography scholar. Her main research topics are the social-political aspect of infrastructure in colonial settings, particularly telecommunication; children’s geographies and playgrounds; neoliberal planning and governance and its effects on the spatial-temporal experiences of marginalised and indigenous communities. She holds a PhD from the Department of Geography and Human Environment at Tel Aviv University (2021).
[Mail] yarasadi@gmail.com