She focuses on building features that encourage dialogue, especially by connecting diverse communities online. Shah has spent much of her career working in the space between media and academia. She is the co-editor of Chinese Characters, a collection of stories about life in China published by UC Press in September, 2012. Formerly the editor of the online magazine AsiaMedia, which was published at the UCLA Asia Institute, she is now a consulting editor to the Journal of Asian Studies. She has reported from across Asia, including China, Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and was a South Asian Journalists Association Reporting Fellow in 2007/08. Her writing has appeared in the LA Weekly, Far Eastern Economic Review, Mother Jones Online, Pacific Standard, TimeOut Singapore and Global Voices.