Photo credit: Meghan Dhaliwal
I'm a reporter, currently based at Columbia University’s School of Journalism as a Spencer Fellow.
I previously covered youth and families for WNYC, New York City's NPR station.
I'm also founder of THE ALIGNIST, a box subscription company that connects international novels to international news -- and offers a taste of the plot through authentic recipes, original illustrations, fair-trade crafts, and more.
My reporting has aired on NPR, PRI’s The World, Deutsche Welle, and Radio France Internationale. I've also reported for The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic, VICE, Ozy, Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, Quartz, and Boston Review, among other outlets.
For most of my career, I've focused in on human stories from around the world. I received support from the International Reporting Project to report on Vodou and sexuality in Haiti, from the International Center For Journalists to report on women's and elders' rights in Kenya. I have also been awarded fellowships from the United Nations Foundation to report on maternal health and infant mortality in Malawi.
I spent two years in Pakistan where I reported on education through a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crises Reporting and all sorts of other things from a mysterious psychological illness among the country's women to a smart phone-based program to combat dengue fever to a beauty salon that employs acid burn survivors. I'm currently working on a novel that's informed by my experiences in Pakistan.
I was honored to be a 2011-2012 Kroc Fellow at NPR through which I reported for its nationally-syndicated flagship shows as well WBUR, Boston’s NPR station.
As a Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom, I earned an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge. My dissertation charted political and national identity formation among Indian students who went to England in the early 1900s to serve the British Raj, but more often became torchbearers of the Independence movement.
I graduated with Highest Honors from the University of Michigan with degrees in Political Science as well as Creative Writing and Literature. As an undergraduate, I facilitated writing workshops with incarcerated women and at-risk youth.
I’ve won a number of creative writing awards including the John Kinsella and Tracey Ryan Poetry Prize, the Helen J. Daniels Prize, the Weisberg Poetry Award, the Cowden Writing Award, and four Hopwood Awards.
As the daughter of Pakistani immigrants to the United States, I learned Urdu as a second language. I can also speak French.