Deena Khalil obtained her MA in the Economics of International Development at the American University in Cairo in 2008. Between 2008 and 2013 she worked as a project coordinator and researcher on studies related to HIV–AIDS, water and sanitation, and monitoring and evaluation in Egypt, Sudan, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in general, with organizations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Since 2012, she has been a PhD candidate at University College London’s Development Planning Unit (DPU), where she is studying the politics of access to potable water and infrastructure in Cairo’s informal areas. Within the DPU, she has also been working as a research assistant for the Environmental Justice and Urban Resilience research cluster since 2013. She is currently Senior Researcher on Egyptian Urbanism at TADAMUN : The Cairo Urban Solidarity Initiative.