May Farhat taught Islamic art and architectural history for many years at the American University of Beirut, the University of the Holy Spirit in Kaslik (USEK), and the Lebanese American University, where she was Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Design, 2022-2024. 

Her research interests cover the architectural history of the Middle East, with a focus on Medieval and early Modern Iran and the late Ottoman visual culture in Bilad al-Sham. She is the author of many articles on the architecture of the Muslim world [such as “Beirut’s Great Umari Mosque: History, Memory and Post-War Reconstruction” for Articles of Faith: Visual Cultures in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds. Essays in Honor of Erica Cruikshank Dodd, eds. Eva Boubala, Lesley Jessop, and Marcus Milwright (Brill, 2023); “Shi’i Piety and Dynastic Legitimacy: Mashhad under the Early Safavids,” Iranian Studies 47, 2 (2014); and “A Mediterraneanist’s Collection: Henri Pharaon’s ‘Treasure House of Arab Art,’” Ars Orientalis 42 (2012).] 

From 2023, she has been the director of the LAU-Louis Cardahi Foundation in Byblos.