As #IAS_NUQ approaches its fifth anniversary, we are firmly established as a leading global research institute with vibrant fellowship, event, and publication programs; impactful partnerships and collaborations; and transformative faculty support opportunities.

In the past year, we made significant strides in building #IAS_NUQ Press. Key developments include the hiring of Azka Anwar as Publications Manager; the release of a special issue on InterAsian Digitalities with a peer-reviewed journal; securing a contract for an edited volume on Southern Digitalities with University of Illinois Press, and the publication of five papers by IAS Undergraduate Fellows.

In 2025-26, we welcomed three Global Fellows (with a fourth postponed to AY 2026-27). Mostafa Minawi (Cornell University), Sara Mourad (American University of Beirut), and Asri Saraswati (University of Indonesia) each spent two to four months in residence at NU-Q developing contracted book projects, presenting colloquia to the Education City community, and participating in the #IAS_NUQ writing group and other Institute initiatives.

In August 2025, Angela Haddad joined the Institute from New York University as our fourth Postdoctoral Scholar, joining Mariam Karim, Chafic Najem, and Harsha Maharjan (2023–2026). Their research spans transregional literary connections between the Arab world and Caribbean (Haddad), Arab feminism (Karim), digital media in carceral spaces in Lebanon (Najem), and biometric citizenship in Nepal (Maharjan). Our postdoctoral scholars have been exceptionally productive, publishing widely in internationally recognized peer-reviewed journals (see faculty scholarship highlights for details).

IAS_NUQ Global Undergraduate Fellows continue to produce significant original research projects on the on the histories, cultures, societies, and media of the Global South. In January, the 2025 fellows showcased their work at a major community celebration featuring three research papers, six multimodal projects, and six short documentaries. Since then, their projects have been accepted and presented at major international conferences and festivals, including IAMCR, ASA, EU Youth Short Film Festival, Middle MESA, and Global South Lens Film Festival.

The 2026 cohort began work in January, addressing critical topics such as digital protest cultures in Nepal; church-state-diaspora relations in Armenia; the effects of political incarceration on families in the West Bank; and the preservation of minority languages and identities across Mongolia, China, and Central Asia. We were also delighted that In’utu Imbuwa, 2023 #IAS_NUQ Undergraduate Fellow and author of #IAS_NUQ_Press Paper 1, was named a 2026 Rhodes scholar.

In summer and fall of 2025, #IAS_NUQ continued to expand its global reach with a major presence at several top academic conferences, including ACSS (Beirut), ICA (Denver), IAMCR (Singapore), and MESA (Washington DC). At ACSS, we officially launched the Society for Humanistic Arab Media Studies (SHAMS), dedicated to advancing rigorous, multidisciplinary, and humanistic research on Arab media within social, cultural, and political-economic contexts and conducted a publication workshop on InterAsian Digitalities.

At ICA in Denver, we hosted “Echoes and Overlaps in Arab and African Thought on Media and Culture ,” a one-day preconference exploring shared epistemologies, divergences, and entangled histories of Arab and African thought on media and culture, along with a roundtable on InterAsian Digitalities. At IAMCR in Singapore, we hosted a preconference titled “ InterAsian Digitalities: Rethinking Theories and Methods,” while showcasing the work of #IAS_NUQ researchers, postdoctoral scholars, and undergraduate fellows. Our delegation included recent alumni Annastazia Ng’ambi and Mahnoor Ahmer Ansari, who presented research on journalism in Zambia and gendered time practices on TikTok in Pakistan, respectively.

#IAS_NUQ also organized the first SHAMS meeting in conjunction with MESA in November, including a roundtable featuring established and emerging scholars reflecting on humanistic methodologies in Arab media studies.

Our fall public events program featured four colloquia highlighting research by IAS Postdoctoral Scholars and Global Fellows. We also hosted a conference on Key Moments in Media and Culture, the culmination of three years of work by the Humanistic Inquiry and Theory Group at NU-Q. Additional programming included two panels:“Digital Public History in a Global Context,” co-organized with the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH), and“Everyday Technologies: Media in Middle East History,” hosted with the Journalism and Strategic Communication program as part of an #IAS_NUQ Global Conference and Workshop Grant awarded to William Youmans.

In November, we hosted Andrea Medrado (University of Exeter) for the third annual NU-Q Lecture on the Global South. Medrado delivered a public lecture,“Favel IA: South-to-South Dialogues on Digital Colonialism, Participation and Justice,” and led a workshop on Critical AI and the Global South with IAS postdoctoral scholars and NU-Q faculty. The visit also included a mentoring lunch with undergraduate fellows and a vodcast conversation with NU-Q Dean and CEO Marwan M. Kraidy.

Our Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York, was active with the launch of SHAMS and our fourth Theory and Method Winter School in January. This year’s theme,“Media Policy and Governance,” introduced graduate students and early career scholars from diverse institutions to courses on media policy analysis, Arab media systems and governance, and policy brief writing. Participants are currently refining policy briefs, which will be published by #IAS_NUQ_Press.

Our partnership with the Arab Council for Social Sciences (ACSS) continues to support programming in Critical Security Studies, including monthly brown bags convening scholars from around Qatar and co-sponsored talks with the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) at Georgetown University in Qatar.

Our partnership with the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) has expanded to include workshops for IAS fellows on digital and public history, participation in symposia hosted by University of Luxembourg MA students, and plans for a Public History in the Middle East workshop at Qatar National Library (QNL) next fall.

Through our InterAsia Partnership, we hosted a Summer School on Southern Digitalities, co-organized with the Center for Digital Cultures and Societies (University of Queensland) and the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts (Vietnam National University), in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 11–14.