Tarek Swelim obtained his Ph.D. in Islamic art and architecture from Harvard in 1994. He leads and lectures to American tour groups from prestigious institutions throughout Egypt, the Middle East, and North Africa, and he is the author or co-author of a number of publications on Cairo's Islamic and Roman architecture. He has taught at the American University in Cairo and Ain Shams University and is currently associate professor of Islamic art and architecture at the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies of the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar.