Assistant / Associate / Full Professor Architecture and City Design Department📣 Job Ad

About the Role

The Department of Architecture & City Design (ACD) at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) | جامعة الملك فهد للبترول والمعادن invites applications for full-time faculty positions in Dhahran at the Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor ranks. The ACD department focuses on the study, planning, and design of cities, with a disciplinary foundation in urban planning and city design, enhanced by scientific and quantitative analysis, spatial intelligence, sustainability, systems thinking, and emerging technologies. The department offers academic programs in Smart & Sustainable Cities and seeks faculty who can contribute to understanding cities as complex spatial, environmental, social, and technological systems.

Key Research Areas

Candidates are encouraged to have expertise in one or more of the following priority areas, particularly those whose work connects these areas with artificial intelligence, data science, computational methods, digital technologies, or other relevant KFUPM research strengths:

• Urban Planning & Development: Urban and regional planning, land-use planning, housing and real-estate development, urban economics, planning policy and governance, urban growth and transformation.
• Urban Analytics & Spatial Intelligence: GIS and advanced spatial analysis, urban analytics and urban data science, GeoAI and geospatial intelligence, remote sensing for urban applications, urban modeling and simulation, urban digital twins, urban sensing and computing.
• Urban Form, Mobility & Accessibility: Urban morphology and spatial analysis, land use–transportation interaction, mobility and accessibility, smart mobility, transit-oriented development, walkability and pedestrian environments.
• Urban Environment, Sustainability & Resilience: Urban climate and heat, climate-responsive urban planning, sustainable urban systems, urban environmental performance, urban resilience, sustainable infrastructure and resource systems, arid-city sustainability.
• City Design, Livability & Human Experience: City and urban design, evidence-informed and computational urban design, public space and placemaking, livability and quality of life, human behavior and urban environments, place identity and cultural sustainability, human-centered smart cities.

Responsibilities

• Teach undergraduate and graduate courses within the department’s academic programs.
• Establish and maintain a productive and internationally visible research program.
• Publish high-quality research in reputable peer-reviewed journals.
• Pursue competitive research funding where appropriate.
• Supervise undergraduate and graduate research.
• Contribute to curriculum and program development.
• Participate in interdisciplinary research and collaboration across KFUPM.
• Engage, where relevant, with government, industry, and professional organizations.
• Contribute to departmental and university service.

Qualifications and Requirements

Successful candidates must hold a PhD and demonstrate a strong disciplinary foundation, rigorous research methods, and the ability to contribute to interdisciplinary urban research. Candidates may come from backgrounds including urban/city planning, urban design, architecture, geography, geospatial science, environmental studies, transportation, urban economics, computational urbanism, or related disciplines, provided their teaching and research align with the department’s urban mission.

The department particularly values candidates who can:

• Develop internationally competitive research addressing significant urban challenges.
• Publish in high-quality peer-reviewed journals.
• Contribute to undergraduate and graduate education in Smart & Sustainable Cities.
• Employ rigorous quantitative, spatial, computational, qualitative, or design-research methods as appropriate to their research.
• Collaborate across disciplines within KFUPM.
• Develop research partnerships with government, industry, and international academic institutions.
• Contribute to research addressing the rapid urban transformation of Saudi Arabia while generating knowledge of wider international relevance.

Compensation

Competitive tax-free salaries are offered, based on qualifications and experience.