Dr. Manal Al-Bishawi, is an assistant professor in architecture & spatial planning at the Department of Architectural Engineering and Master Program in Urban Planning / Faculty of Engineering and Technology at Birzeit University, Palestine. She worked and participated in several local and international workshops and conferences. Her academic and research activities are oriented towards the urban landscape, relationship between urban environment and individual's behavior, gender issues in urban open spaces, particularly in Arab-Muslim cities.  She has many publications in refereed Journals and Books (Methodological Approach for Reading Urban Open Space /Journal of Archnet-IJAR, Women’s Behavior in Public Spaces and the Influence of Privacy as an Islamic Value\The case of Nablus, Palestine/ Journal of Urban Studies, Physical Space, Social Behavior and Socioeconomic Changes in Traditional Neighborhoods: A Case Study of the City of Nablus /Journal of city, culture and society, Women's specific needs and urban planning practices in the Middle East/ Book Chapter inAdvances inEngineering Education in the Middle East and North Africa).  In addition, she worked in design and supervision of several architectural projects in Palestine.