Farès el-Dahdah received his undergraduate degrees in both fine arts and architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and went on to pursue his graduate studies in urbanism and architectural theory at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Following a two decade long professorial track at Rice University's School of Architecture, he was appointed director of the Humanities Research Center (HRC) in 2012, Professor of the Humanities in 2014, and Professor of Art History in 2021. El-Dahdah has held Visiting Fellow positions at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Canadian Center for Architecture. He has written extensively on Brazil's modern architecture and has been involved in several collaborative projects with Casa de Lucio Costa and Fundação Oscar Niemeyer, two Brazilian cultural foundations on the boards of which he serves. He is currently leading a Digital Art History Grant, titled Situated Views of Rio de Janeiro: 19th and Early 20th-Century Photography and the Diluvial Houston initiative, both supported by the Getty and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations, respectively. His current research interests explore and critique how digital platforms uphold the mission of disseminating knowledge and involve the creation of online geospatial platforms in the areas of cultural heritage, public health, social justice, disaster response, and climate change. At Rice, el-Dahdah's activities extend across the university in his capacity as chair of the University Committee on Information Technology, a Baker Institute Faculty Scholar, and as a Faculty Advisory Committee member for the Ken Kennedy Institute.