Collections Curator Rami Alafandi was Research Associate at the Syrian Heritage Archive Project (SHAP), an initiative of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin. From 2018 to 2022, he collaborated with colleagues at the SHAP to build a database of images related to cultural heritage in Syria. The project, which is the largest such digital repository of its kind, brings together visual materials from personal and institutional collections, and provides authoritative data to the public. Under SHAP, Rami contributed articles about Aleppo's historic architecture and produced reports to assess the damage to the city's heritage buildings. Before joining the SHAP, Rami taught courses in cultural heritage at the Abjadya Private Institute for Tourism and the International Centre for Tourism in Aleppo, and also served as conservation assistant at the As‘ad Pasha Al-‘Azim Palace in Hama, and at Bayt Ghazaleh in Aleppo, two Ottoman-period mansions. Rami received a Ph.D. from the International Islamic University of Malaysia in the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment. His dissertation focused on the art of polychrome wooden paneling (called ‘ajami) in courtyard houses in Aleppo during the Ottoman era. Rami has published numerous articles on various aspects of historic architecture in Syria and its cultural materials, and a book on building facades in Aleppo based on his research at the Syrian Heritage Archive.