Dr Sahar Abdelwahab

Dr Sahar is an architect and educator with 11 years of experience in academic teaching and research. She held a lecturer position at Al-Azhar University in Egypt in the field of Sustainable Building Design and Building Performance in the architectural context. Since 2012, she served in different teaching roles either as Assistant lecturer, Module leader, and Dissertation Supervisor at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Her research is centred on Sustainable Building Design and Building Performance with a focus on daylighting, visual comfort, user control and energy performance in buildings. She conducted her PhD research jointly between the University of Nottingham, UK and Al-Azhar University, Egypt (2015-2019) where she focused on the utilization of daylighting as a strategy to reduce energy consumption in buildings located in hot climates and the examination of the involved simulation techniques.

Through her academic experience, she was awarded several national and international grants such as the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education research, Newton-Mosharafa and Fulbright grants. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Nottingham, UK (2016), The University of Texas at Austin, USA (2019), and the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium (2021) for research and faculty development.

Dr Sahar welcomes PhD applications in sustainable building design, building performance, user control, daylight, glare and energy performance, and visual comfort.

Institute of Architecture

• Abdelwahab, S., Kent, M., Mayhoub, M. (2023). Users’ window preferences and motivations of shading control: Influence of cultural characteristics, Journal of Building and Environment.
• Abdelwahab, S., Rutherford, P., Mayhoub, M. (2023). Daylight Performance Simulation Prediction Accuracy: Processing Speed Trade-off, Journal of Green Buildings, Volume 18 N2.
• Abdelfattah, D., Mayhoub, M., Abdelwahab, S., Labib, R., and Eldars, M. (2023). Investigation of the Non‐Visual Effects of Lighting on the Elderly (sleep, Mood, and Alertness). IADC2023 conference, KSA.
• Abdelwahab, S., & Sobh, H. (2022). Visual Discomfort Analysis as a Tool to Support Façade Shading Design: A Case Study in the Architectural Design Studio. Journal of Architectural Engineering, 28(2), 05022003.
• Abdelwahab, S., Elhussainy, M., & Labib, R. (2019). The Negative Impact of Solar Reflections Caused by Reflective Buildings’ Facades: Case Study of the Nasher Museum in Texas. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 297, No. 1, p. 012048). IOP Publishing.
• Abdelwahab, S., Rutherford, P., Mayhoub, M., & Altomonte, S. (2019). Sensitivity Analysis on the Impact of User Control on Daylight and Energy Simulations. In IBPSA-Building Simulation 2019 International Conference.
• Abdelwahab, S., Rutherford, P., Kent, M. G., & Altomonte, S. (2018). Sensitivity Analysis for Energy Modelling based on Daylight Simulations, paper, International Conference for Sustainable Design of the Built Environment SDBE, London.
• Abdelwahab, S., Mayhoub, M. Elkordy, A. (2018). Sunlight Directing System: The Effect of Surface Topology on Daylighting Performance, paper, International Conference for Sustainable Design of the Built Environment SDBE, London.
• Abdelwahab, S., Kent, M. G., & Altomonte, S. (2017). Sensitivity Analysis for the Daylight Simulation of Complex Façades, paper, Conference of Advanced Building skins, Switzerland.
• Abdelwahab, S., & Elghazi, Y. (2016). A generative performance-based design for low-cost brickwork screens. In Proceedings of the Building Simulation and Optimization Conference (BSO16).
• Elghazi, Y., Wagdy, A., & Abdalwahab, S. (2015). Simulation driven design for kinetic system; optimize kaleidocycle façade configuration for daylighting adequacy in hot arid climates. In Proceedings of BS2015: 14th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (pp. 182-189). IBPSA-International Building Performance Simulation Association.
• Wagdy, A., Elghazi, Y., Abdalwahab, S., Hassan, A. (2015). The Balance between Daylight and Thermal Performance Based on Exploiting the Kaleidocycle Typology in Hot Arid Climate of Aswan, Egypt., paper, AEI conference, USA.
• Elghazi, Y., Wagdy, A., Abdalwahab, S., Hassan, A. (2014). Daylighting driven design: optimizing kaleidocycle facade for hot arid climate, paper, BauSIM conference, Germany.

Research areas: daylighting performance in buildings, daylight glare analysis, visual comfort, energy performance, environmental façade design, user control of façade systems, daylight and energy simulations, generative and parametric design, kinetic facades

Sustainable Building Design, Building Simulation, Architecture Studios

PhD in Sustainable Building Design & Building Performance

CRESMI grant ( 2021)
A prize offered by the British Council in Egypt for a collaborative project between Egyptian (Al-Azhar University and Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport AASTMT) and British institutes (University of Salford, University of West of London and UCL) to tackle the impacts of climate change. The Project aims to formulate a proposal under the theme “Climate Adaptation of Egypt’s MSMs through energy retrofit: A future-fit approach”.

The Cultural & Mission Sector, Ministry of Higher Education in Egypt (2021)
Post-doctoral grant at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

Fulbright grant (2019)
The grant provided by the U.S government, awarded to excellent young faculty members from Egypt to attend the Fulbright Junior Faculty Development Program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Newton Mosharafa fund (Octber 2016-2018)
A collaboration between the Egyptian Cultural Affairs and Mission Sector and by the British Council in Egypt. The funding sponsored a period of 2-years visiting PhD study at the University of Nottingham (UK) (October 2016- October 2018)- £25,000 per year.

0000-0001-7738-3239