Haytham Nawar

Haytham Nawar is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of the Arts at The American University in Cairo (AUC), a position he has held since 2019. He joined AUC in 2014 as an Assistant Professor of Design and directed the Graphic Design Program from 2016 to 2019. With over two decades of international experience spanning Greece and Hong Kong, Nawar is a practicing artist-scholar and founding director of Cairotronica, Cairo's International Electronic and New Media Arts Festival held biannually since 2016.

His research centers on Design History with emphasis on the Arab World and Africa, exploring multiscriptual design systems, Arabic typography, and pictographic communication. Nawar investigates trans-culturalism and posthumanism through generative design projects utilizing machine learning, including his ongoing work on a generative pictographic language and studies of Egyptian multiscriptual identity and under-documented African visual cultures.

Nawar's accolades include:

• Fulbright Visiting Artist at School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York (2011-2012)
• Fulbright Visiting Scholar at UCLA ArtSci Center (2017-2018)

As academic leader and mentor, Nawar has guided design students while securing Fulbright-funded research opportunities. His founding of Cairotronica demonstrates sustained commitment to creating institutional platforms for new media art in Egypt, fostering collaborations between artists, designers, and technologists through festival programming and year-round initiatives.

Through Cairotronica, Nawar leads a multidisciplinary team that operates as Egypt's primary hub for electronic arts, organizing exhibitions, workshops, and residencies that bridge traditional artistic practices with emerging technologies while documenting regional visual cultures.