Alya Alqarni is a Saudi designer, curator, and cultural innovation researcher examining how emerging technologies and ecological thinking shape contemporary cultural narratives and future forms of art. She currently leads curatorial research at NEOM. Prior to this, she was a lecturer at the College of Design at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Dammam between 2015 and 2021.
Her artistic and curatorial work critically engages with AI-generated systems, cultural data bias, and questions of representation within technological infrastructures. Her work has been presented at international exhibitions, research platforms, and institutional programs, including Cairotronica, NeurIPS’ Machine Learning for Creativity and Design, The Design Museum traveling exhibition at Ithra, the G20 Global AI Summit, and Sadu Studio Art Residency in Kuwait. She has also presented and spoken on contemporary museum practice, design, and artificial intelligence at venues including the Saudi National Museum, Ithra, and LinkedIn HQ in Dubai.
Alqarni was selected for the second cohort of NEOM’s Women in Leadership program. She holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design and is currently pursuing an MA in Museum Studies at SOAS, University of London.