Savia Palate holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Cambridge (2021) as a Cambridge Trust Scholar (Vice-Chancellor Award). During that time, she has been a doctoral resident at the Canadian Centre of Architecture (2020) and an A.G. Leventis Foundation Scholar. She holds an MA in History and Critical Thinking from the Architectural Association School of London with Distinction, and an MArch II in Theory and Design (cluster: Space, Society, and Culture) from the Pennsylvania State University, as a Fulbright Scholar.

Her research endeavours focus on "uneasy but shared heritage" on contested territories, an exploration that started in 2022 through the USHer project, "Uneasy but Shared Heritage: Modern Architecture on a Divided Island." The project investigates the role of architectural history in contributing to the intangible value of modern architecture as heritage that can be shared. Beyond its theoretical explorations, the project involved an experimental methodological approach, through which the USHer digital platform was created (website: https://www.usherarchitecture.com/); an interactive guide to modern architecture in Cyprus as an "archive that listens." 

She co-chaired a paper session titled "What is Shared? Architectural Heritage in Conflict" at the 2023 SAH conference, which led to the recently published special guest issue in Fabrications (SAHANZ journal).

She is particularly interested in "buildings that no longer exist" as explored through colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial theoretical frameworks, and in how architectural historiography deals with the scarcity of physical evidence. She co-chaired an EAHN paper session on the theme, and she is now co-convenor of the EAHN Interest Group On Vanished Buildings, currently working on an edited volume.

She leads the USHer Research Group (website: www.ucy.ac.cy/usher), which currently runs the LatentCoop project, titled "Architectural Histories of Latent Cooperation in the British Empire," funded by the Research and Innovation Foundation.