Yasmine Abbas
- Assistant Teaching Professor of Architecture
424 Stuckeman
- Email yxa54@psu.edu
- Phone 814-867-4735
Biography
Yasmine Abbas is a French architect (DPLG 1997) and strategic designer. Her research explores mobility, digital culture, and augmented place-making, with her current focus being on fabricating atmospheres, generative mapping, cartography, and the computational design of ambiance.
She is the author of Le néo-nomadisme : Mobilités. Partage. Transformations identitaires et urbaines (2011) and co-editor of Digital Technologies of the Self (Abbas, Y. & Dervin, F., 2009).
Abbas has worked in multicultural environments in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. She consults internationally employing design thinking to generate panurban intelligence and drive urban innovation. Her design consulting experience includes work with ReD Associates (Denmark), Steelcase ARC (France), and Masdar City (UAE) as an environmental sociologist.
She is the co-founder of the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP), winner of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Centennial Innovation Challenge 2013, and 2017 SEED award for Public Interest Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism 2017.
Prior to joining Penn State, Abbas served as chair of design management at the Paris College of Art.
She received a SMArchS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2001) and a Doctor of Design from Harvard University (2006) for her work investigating neo-nomads, researching strategies for the design of living environments across contemporary conditions of expanded physical, digital, and mental mobilities.