Director, Rogers Kolachi Khan & Associates Ltd. (Lahore, Pakistan) and Archaeological Assessments Ltd. (Hong Kong).
Visiting Professor, National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan
After receiving her BA in Classics (University of British Columbia), Dr. Rogers studied Ancient History and Archaeology for her MA (University of Birmingham), followed by a PhD in archaeology from University College London’s Institute of Archaeology. Her doctoral thesis was on maritime adaptation in the archaeological record of the Zhujiang Delta and incorporated theoretical models developed with her colleague Richard Engelhardt, during years of ethnoarchaeological work with the The Phuket Project: a Study of Maritime Adaptation in Southeast Asia.
Ayesha has lived in Asia for more than forty years, working throughout the region as a field archaeologist, UNESCO consultant, educator and as founder and director of leading archaeology and heritage consultancies in both Hong Kong and Pakistan. She has conducted archaeological fieldwork widely in Hong Kong for both research and impact assessment, and in Laos, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey and Greece.
Dr. Rogers has been instrumental in the development of Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) as a tool for safeguarding heritage and integrating it meaningfully into the contemporary developmental context of Hong Kong and other Asian countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos and Pakistan. She has overseen and conducted several hundred HIA projects ranging from strategic regional studies to infrastructure development and tourism and restoration in historic cities. She has conducted regular HIA training for national governments and UNESCO in the region and is HIA technical consultant to UNESCO Bangkok and an advisor to the World Bank on heritage safeguards
Other particular interests on which she has researched and published include the development of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach and its application to the historic cities of South Asia; living heritage and resilience in historic towns; mapping of cultural landscapes, both rural (Northern Pakistan) and urban (historic cities of Pakistan) and the role of the artist in interpreting and engaging history.
Dr. Rogers was founder and Academic Coordinator of the Center for Cultural Heritage Conservation & Management at National College of Arts and is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies. She has taught undergraduate courses in material culture studies and museums and cultural identity and taught MPhil-PhD courses and supervised graduate theses in cultural history, heritage theory, management of historic places and tools for heritage professionals.
