Biography
Cynthia Myntti has spent most of her professional life in or connected to the Arab World. She received her MA in anthropology from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1974, before earning a PhD in social anthropology at the London School of Economics (1983) and a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University (1986). Cynthia worked as a program officer in the Ford Foundation offices in Cairo and Jakarta for nearly a decade, and held teaching positions at AUB, Sanaa University in Yemen (on a Fulbright award), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the University of Minnesota in the USA. After publishing Paris along the Nile: Architecture in Cairo from the Belle Epoque (Cairo: AUC Press, 1999) Cynthia decided to return to graduate school, in architecture, graduating with an M Arch from Yale in 2004. From 2006-2016 Cynthia served as founding director of the Neighborhood Initiative at AUB, and was Professor of Public Health Practice. Cynthia's current research and teaching interest is how architectural and urban design affects the public's health. She is also working on a life history project in Beirut. Cynthia teaches “Well-Being and the Design of the Built Environment" in the New York University – Abu Dhabi J Term.
Publications with AUB Press: