Nubras Samayeen is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint program of Landscape Architecture and Architecture with a minor in heritage at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her dissertation titled “Architecture of the Land” investigates the construction of national identity through built-environment. After her undergraduate degree in architecture from Bangladesh, she completed dual master’s degrees in Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with distinction. She worked in Eisenman Architects, HOK, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners LLP in New York. In Washington DC she worked in ZGF and Shalom Baranes Associates. Her design contributions were mostly on large projects in urban scale that includes Princeton University Master Plan, Washington DC Streetcar and Anacostia Development, Columbia Heights Redevelopment, Civic Center DC (CCDC, a project of Norman Foster and Partners). Later, she joined Howard University in Washington DC as an assistant professor of architecture, where she taught both design and survey courses. Currently, she serves as an advisor and offers project-based partnership at a design consultancy and construction office, Reincarnation in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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At Illinois, she received numerous national and international awards. These include the Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship from Harvard University, Kennedy Travel Fellowship, Bellafiore Scholarship, Feil Travel Awards, AAUW International fellowship, and prestigious Humanities Research Institute Fellowship. Her last leg of work is currently supported by the Illinois Dissertation Completion Fellowship. She was a finalist for Graham Foundations research award in 2022. At Illinois, she was awarded Nicholson Fellowship to study at Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory in 2023. Among many her more recent publications include “Re-Constructing ’71: The Visual Landscape of Bangladeshi Nationalism Today,” "Post-71: Photographic Ambivalences, Archives, and the Construction of a National Identity of Bangladesh." “Space to Breathe: George Floyd, BLM plaza and the Monumentalization of Divided American Urban landscapes,” and “A Tale of Two Cities: Dhaka’s Urban Imaginary in 21st Century.” Her most recent publication includes “The Landscape of 1971: Museums, Memories, and the Aesthetics of Bangladeshi Nationalism” and “The Construction of a National Identity in the Postcolonial Era: Louis Kahn’s Capitol Complex in Bangladesh.”