Maysaa Sati

Maysaa Sati is a researcher, urban planner, and human rights advocate from Sudan. She recently completed her Master in City Planning at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, where her work focused on the spatial, political, and cultural dimensions of long-term displacement. With a background in architecture (BSc., University of Khartoum), Maysaa’s research interrogates how displacement camps evolve into urban settlements, raising questions about temporality, informality, and identity in the context of protracted crisis.

Maysaa’s work bridges ethnographic methods, spatial analysis, and open-source investigations to understand how communities resist, adapt, and reimagine space under conditions of precarity. Her master’s thesis, Navigating Identity and Place, examines Kalma IDP Camp in Darfur as a site of governance, resilience, and cultural preservation. As co-founder of AcaciaPulse, a predictive aid platform supported by MIT DesignX, she is developing tools that leverage AI and geospatial data to forecast displacement in conflict zones and support more responsive humanitarian interventions. Maysaa is committed to reframing humanitarian planning through grounded, community-informed approaches that center dignity and survival as urban practices.