Ifrah Asif

Ifrah Asif is a preservation architect from Pakistan and a PhD student in Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on the impact of climate change on historic buildings. She works at the intersection of architecture and historic preservation, incorporating material science, vernacular contexts, adaptive reuse, micro-climates and sustainability. As a licensed architect and a heritage consultant in Pakistan, Ifrah has been documenting and preserving historic sites across the country.

Ifrah has collaborated with various international organizations on diverse projects, including the Getty Conservation Institute, the National Parks Service, the Center for Architectural Conservation at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. As a Graduate Intern for the Earthen Architecture Initiative at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, she contributed to the Seismic Retrofitting Project in Peru and the Earthen Architecture Course. She also worked with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture on the documentation and preservation of the Picture Wall in Lahore Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At the Center for Architectural Conservation at UPenn, Ifrah contributed to the Vanishing Treasures Project by NPS, developing a historic plaster conservation curriculum.

Ifrah also taught as Lecturer at the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan, where she led the Heritage and Restoration studio. She advocated for reshaping architectural education in Pakistan by emphasizing the climate crisis, disaster resilient architecture and energy-efficient design.

Ifrah earned her Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the UPenn as a Fulbright Scholar in 2021, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan, in 2017. She has received numerous awards, including the Getty Graduate Internship Grant (2023), the Albert Binder Fellowship, the Dawn and Brian Gonick Architectural Conservation Professional Development Award at  UPenn (2020), the Fulbright Scholarship (2019) and the Mevlana Exchange Scholarship (2015).

Research Interests

• Adaptive reuse
• Sustainability 
• Climate change 
• Material science