about

Leena Ghannam is an incoming Ph.D. student in Art History at Stanford University. 

She is an art historian, artist, and writer whose work focuses on artistic encounters in the Middle East and North Africa, the history of perception, spoliation and reuse, and the archaeology of urban public spaces. Leena currently works at the Art Institute in Chicago as the McMullan Research Arts Intern for Islamic Art in the Arts of Africa Department.

In 2025, Leena earned an M.A. in Islamic Art and Architecture at the American University in Cairo, where she wrote a thesis on Fatimid architectural iconography. Leena earned her B.A. from the University of Michigan (2020) with a double major in History of Art and English and a minor in Museum Studies. 

Leena has worked and consulted for numerous organizations, including the 2nd Islamic Arts Biennale in Saudi Arabia, Google Arts and Culture, the Barakat Trust, Megawra, the Nadim Foundation, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Wayne State University Art Collection. She was also employed as a long-term research assistant for the “Tracing Purple Porphyry” project under the direction of Dr. Linda Gosner. She serves as the Closed Captions Editor and inaugural Newsletter Editor at Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, an educational resource hosted by the University of Michigan.