Zainab was the 2011-2013 Mellon Post-Doc Fellow at the John B. Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities at Haverford College. She received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 2011. Zainab's research examines the politicization of sectarian and ethnic identities among Iraqis in London, and the reconfiguration of the past after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Zainab's publications include "Iraq and Its Tahrir Square" in The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings, "On Iraqi Nationality: Law, Citizenship, and Exclusion" in Arab Studies Journal, and "Beating the Drums of Orientalism" in Sightings. Currently, Zainab is working on a book manuscript entitled Vanished Returns: Memory, Sectarianism & Exile among Iraqis in the United Kingdom.