Belen Desmasion is an architect and urban designer with experience working in Asia, Europe, North and South America. She currently teaches and conducts research at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Belen Desmasion has coordinated CASA [Ciudades Auto-Sostenibles Amazónicas] (Self-Sustainable Cities in the Amazon) (2017-2018), an action-research project which explores settlement relocations in the Amazon Rainforest. Currently, Belen Desmasion coordinates the Lima chapter of KNOW: Knowledge in Action Towards Urban Equality (2018-2021), an action-research project led by UCL that works with social, political, and community actors to make visible, understand, and transform the dynamics that generate and maintain inequality between social groups in the city.

Belen Desmasion holds an MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development from University College London and a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Belen Desmasion will begin part-time doctorate studies in Human Geography at Durham University in 2020. Her interests include settlement relocation, socially and environmentally just urban practices, social housing, planning and urban design in the global South.