Our Team

Awais Hussain

Awais is the co-founder of Apna Heritage, a vision which has evolved from years of researching the community. He is a doctoral student of Linguistics at the University of York, focusing on the syntax of Indo-Aryan languages. He is involved in numerous heritage projects, including Apna Bradford, as well as documenting Pahari-Pothwari language varieties.

Dr Mediah Ahmed
Mediah, our deputy director of projects, holds an MSci in Astrophysics and a PhD in Biophysics. She has a passion for theatre, participating in Royal Court’s Unheard Voices workshops and debuting Repentance at Angle at the Bush. Her latest work, Gaza Monologues, was an online solidarity event. Mediah is also deeply connected to her Panjabi heritage, exploring its rich history through the spiritual wisdom of Sufi poets.
Nabeela Ahmed

Nabeela oversees our Language & Literature portal. A writer, multilingual poet, and spoken word artist, she published her novella Despite Our Differences in 2018. She teaches creative writing and performs readings in schools, libraries, and festivals like The Brontës Wild Women Festival. Nabeela has compiled two anthologies from these sessions and hosts Bradford Writes, a platform for local writers. She also organized Britain’s only public Pahari Mushaira through the Intercultured Festival.

Dr Mustafa Khan
Mustafa leads the Family History domain, specialising in clans and tribes. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from SOAS, University of London, with a research focus on everyday encounters linked to state-led infrastructure interventions in marginal zones and borderlands. Currently, he works as a planning and infrastructure lawyer for the Welsh Government. His interests include genealogy and family history, and he runs a well-established blog, Newpakhistorian: An Ethnology and History of Punjabi Tribes.
Arslaan Mahmood

Contributors

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