OSCR Member: Yasser Qaffas
Description
My academic background is in urban and regional planning studies. I was awarded my master’s degree in urban land use studies in 2012 from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. My MSc thesis explored the User-Initiated Transformations of Public Housing in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Prior to joining IHS, I worked as a lecturer in the urban and regional planning department, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, KSA.
My research interests include the sustainable development of patterns of retail areas. The topic of my current Ph.D. research is ‘Planning the Mega Shopping Mall in Saudi Arabia: Adapting to the Social and Economic Impacts of Malls in Jeddah’. The research aims to investigate the extent to which mega shopping malls in Jeddah comply with the principles of sustainable and resilient urban planning, particularly in terms of their social and economic impacts, while also effectively catering to the shopping needs of the local population. My approach combines concepts of sustainability and resiliency, customer satisfaction, and socioeconomic external effects.