M. (Mahda) Foroughi

M. (Mahda) Foroughi

Profile

Expertise

public participation, urban planning, cultural heritage, UNESCO, social media, machine learning

Biography

Using social media every day? How can the whole society benefit from the time we spend on social media? Do you want to be involved in the decisions made for your neighborhood development? How can we participate more actively in urban development via social media? What are the opportunities that social media offer policy-makers and urban developers to engage people in the decisions on their neighborhood, urban areas, and the city?

These are the questions that Mahda Foroughi explores in her research lab every day! She asks questions about How people connect and interact on social media discussing urban areas. She focuses on how we can mitigate the challenges of public participation using social media as a new data source where people share their everyday experiences and feelings. She also examines how our daily online activities can affect urban development. Specifically, she explores how the online discussion on social media can contribute to inclusive urban management. Mahda Foroughi is particularly interested in the role that social media can play to develop urban areas considering the values of various interest groups including minorities.

Mahda Foroughi received her BS in Architecture Engineering and an MA in Landscape and Urban Planning from the University of Tehran (Iran), and is currently a Ph.D. researcher at TUDelft, UNESCO chair on Heritage and Values: Heritage and the Reshaping of Urban Conservation for Sustainability. Her Ph.D. entitles "Consensus Building and Public Participation in Cultural Heritage Management.” It aims to facilitate public inclusion in urban management, particularly in heritage areas, using available unstructured textual data sources, namely, social media, literature, and policy documents. In this project, digitalization is accrued in the data source, analytical tools, and data management. As the data source, this project uses social media posts, namely, Instagram and Twitter. As analytical tools, various Natural language processing techniques are used for data analysis.

You can find me through different online platforms:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahda-foroughi-44527015a/

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=kY1c4MEAAAAJ

Awards

 I was selected as the ambassador of the Faro Convention International Conference 2022: Heritage and Digitalization (October 2022, Faro). The event is organized by Faro Town Hall together with the UNESCO Heritage and the Reshaping of Urban Conservation for Sustainability chair, and TUDelft Heritage & Values chair. www.youtube.com/watch

Publications

Artificial intelligence and architectural design: an introduction [ Peoples’ values and feelings matter: Participatory heritage management using social media] M Foroughi, B de Andrade, AP Roders Artificial Intelligence and Architectural Design: An Introduction, 107-120
Public Participation as a Tool to reach a Consensus: A Critical Reflection on the Historic Urban Landscape Approach M Foroughi, B de Anderade, AP Roders LDE Heritage International Conference on Heritage and the Sustainable development
The concept of participation in landscape design SA Mansouri, M Foroughi The Monthly Scientific Journal of Bagh-e Nazar 15 (62), 17-24
The barriers of participatory landscape design approaches based on experts’ opinions M Foroughi, S Norouzian-Maleki, M Hajimaghsoudi Environmental Sciences 15 (4), 193-214

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Publications