American University of Beirut

Student Research Projects

​​Student Research Projects in History and Archaeology Since 2010

Current MA Thesis Projects:​

  • ​Ayat Basma 
    • Revolutionary Dreaming: The Contesting Visions for Iraq’s Built Heritage

​Current PhD Dissertation Projects:

Completed PhD Dissertations and MA Theses

History PhD dissertations:

  • ​Sarah Sabban, 2025 
    • al-Ṣināʿa in Late Ottoman Beirut: A Historical Study of an Arabic Concept
  • Michael Arnold, 2025
    • Abū al-Hudā al-Ṣayyādī and Islamic Conservatism During the Reign of Abdülhamid II (1878-1908) 
  • Yasmin Shafei, 2024
    • Between the Mad and the Bad: Psychiatrists and Patients in Egypt's State Asylums​
  • ​Ali Mehmet Neyzi, 2021
    • Aşiret Mektebi: The Imperial School for Tribes, 1892-1907​​
  • Catherine Wadad Batruni, 2019
    • Producing Pioneers: The American Junior College for Women and the Beirut College for Women, 1924-1973
  • Karen Raif Moukheiber, 2015
    • Slave Women and Free Men: Gender, Sexuality, and Culture in Early Abbasid Times
  • Aaron Tylor Brand, 2014
    • Lives Darkened by Calamity: Enduring the Famine of World War I in Lebanon and Western Syria

History MA Theses:

  • Mohamad Ali El Hasan, 2025
    • Between Condemnation and Exoneration: The Sunnī Scholarly Debate on Yazīd in Bilād al-Shām and Bilād al-Rūm (1300-1700) ​
  • Sara Itawi, 2025
    • Historical Writing and the State: Sultans in the Biographical Writing of 16th and 17th-century Historians of Bilād al-Shām 
  • Hussein Bachacha, 2025
    • Divergent Routes to the Top in Early Ottoman Damascus (1550-1650): a Study of al-Ḥasan al-Būrīnī and Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī’s Lives and Careers 
  • Ali Mansour, 2023
    • Al-Ghazali's Use of the Concepts of Miracle, Habit, and Mercy, to Critique Inductive Experimental Science
  • Thomas Connell, 2020
    • Borderland Transformation: Colonial Ottomanism in al-Karak, 1893-1918
  • Nancy Hallak, 2022
    • ​Approaching The Qur'an Through The Lens of Muhammad Shahrur: A Critical Analysis
  • Badria Ghassan El Jilani, 2021
    • ​​​A Comparative Study of Perceptions and Attitudes Towards the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt and Syria​​
  • Yous​​​sef El-Khoury Salem, 2020
    • Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq in the Public Sphere: al-Jawāʾib Newspaper (1861-1884)
  • Elijah Powelson, 2020
    • The Northcliffe​ Press and Zionism: The Times, The Daily Mail, and the Battle for the Jewish National Home in Palestine, 1917-1922
  • Bedros Puzant Torosian, 2019
    • In Search of Haven and Seeking Fortune: The Economic Role of Ottoman Armenian Migrants in British-Occupied Egypt (1882-1914)
  • Raja Jamal Abu Hassan, 2017
    • The Settlement and Economic Development of Hawran 1860-1914: A Reconsideration of Motives and Forces
  • Tamara Maatouk, 2017
    • Understanding the Public Sector in Egyptian Cinema: A State Venture
  • Hratch Yervant Kestenian, 2015
    • A Portrait of Armenian Student Life at the Syrian Protestant College 1885-1920
  • Cyma Sami Farah, 2014
    • Religion, Science, and Power in the Making of the Survey of Western Palestine
  • Choon Hwee Koh, 2014
    • Qāytbāy’s Journey to Bilād al-Shām in 882/1477: Power, Periphery, and Royal Peregrinations
  • Emily Louise Dawes, 2013
    • Osman Hamdi Bey, Gertrude Bell, and the Archaeology of Mesopotamia
  • Jeremey Nicholas Randall, 2013
    • Reconfiguring the Abbasid Court: The Case of al-Amin
  • Matthew Alan Sharp, 2013
    • Transformation at the Syrian Protestant College: The Role of Liberal Protestant Theology and Epistemology in the Shifting Vision of a Missionary College
  • Joan Elias Chaker, 2012
    • Eastern Tobacco and the Ottoman Regie: A History of Financiers in the Age of Empire

Archaeology MA Theses:

  • Nathan Azar, 2024
    • Archaeology of the Mtein and Kfar Selouan Road: A GIS and Landscape Analysis
  • Marya Soubra, 2023
    • Archaeobotany in Lebanon, Case Studies Proving the Value of Implementing Archaeobotanical Analysis in Excavations
  • Rochana Faraj, 2022
    • Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period Coins from the Beirut Central District (5th Century B.C. - 5th Century A.D.)
  • Rana Zaher, 2019
    • Towards an Understanding of the Date and Style of the Portal Lion of Tell Ta’yinat: A Deconstructive Approach
  • Hassan El-Hajj, 2015
    • Domestic Architecture and Social Change in the Greco-Roman Near East
  • Naseem Naji Raad, 2015
    • Roman Amphorae in the Near East: A Study of the Distribution of Spanish, North African, and Local Types
  • Emilia M. Jastrzebska, 2011
    • Children in the Early Bronze Age Mortuary Customs of the Levant
  • Marshall Charles Woodworth, 2011
    • Organic Residue Analysis of Beirut Amphorae by Chemical Analytical Techniques
  • Nathalie Alfred Kallas, 2010
    • Stratigraphic Study of Area I-Northwest at Tell el-Burak, South Lebanon: Squares 29/27, 29/28, 30/27 & 30/28
  • Riva Riad Daniel, 2010
    • Early Bronze Age Cylinder Seals and Impressions from Lebanon

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