Fiza Shahzad

Fiza is a first-year Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests encompass the intersection of Islam in South Asia, women’s histories, and legal histories. Currently, she is investigating disinheritance practices affecting Muslim women in Punjab during the early modern and colonial time periods.

Fiza graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (Honors) from Georgetown University, where she conducted undergraduate research on the impact of colonial legal systems on women in the Khoja Muslim community. She also holds certificates in Gender & Politics and Arab & Regional Studies from Georgetown. Her academic journey continued with a Master of Arts in History from Tufts University, where she focused on public perceptions versus legal practices surrounding inheritance laws for Muslim women. For her research, Fiza analyzed various court documents and Urdu women's magazines. Her M.A. dissertation, "Public Perception vs. Practice: Tracing Muslim Women's (Dis)Inheritance in Punjab, 1526-Present," was awarded high honors. A portion of her research was supported by the Tisch Graduate Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities (2022).

In addition to her academic work, Fiza has contributed to archival initiatives focused on South Asian cultural heritage. At Princeton University, she served as Assistant for South Asian Collections, helping establish a new archive of Pakistani film ephemera. She currently works at Penn Libraries as a South Asian Studies Project Assistant, where she creates metadata and conducts end processing for a collection of Pakistani film posters, booklets, and related materials in Urdu. Her work is conducted in collaboration with colleagues in the Kislak Center and Global Studies Technical Services.

Advisor: Ramya Sreenivasan

Committee: Hardeep Dhillon, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Megan E. Robb