Leila Saboori is a lecturer in architecture/historic preservation at CU Denver College of Architecture and Planning, and a PhD candidate in Architecture at School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Trained as an architect and architectural/urban historian, she is devoted to increasing awareness of socio-cultural aspects of the built environment, significance of preservation of our cultural heritage, and supporting an inclusive architectural history/practice.
Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Leila’s dissertation focuses on microhistory of oil, architecture, and urban modernity in Iran. Located at the intersection of oil and space, her research highlights the role of oil as the key agent in socio-spatial transformations of the 20th-century landscape. Her research examines how the rapid modern transformations of the landscape under the management and control of the British-owned oil company (Anglo-Persian/Iranian Oil Company, BP today) influenced the everyday lived experience of the local population.