Ayah Aboelela is a World History Ph.D. student at Northeastern University. She researches the Hajj in the late Ottoman period through the eyes of Muslim travel writers who journeyed through Egypt, Palestine, and the Hijaz. Her work explores patterns in their interactions with the environment, spirituality, and European colonialism. Having received her M.A. in World History and Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities from Northeastern in 2023, she has completed several digital history projects and worked as a Research Associate for various digital humanities organizations, including the Boston Research Center and the NULab for Digital Humanities and Computational Social Science. Her writing has been published by Traversing Tradition, The Qarawiyyin Project, MuslimMatters, and Mondoweiss among others. She is also a student of traditional Islamic scholarship, currently holding ijazahs in two Quranic recitations and working on learning more. Ayah hopes to combine her background in software and love for history and storytelling to make historical stories more accessible to both academic and non-academic audiences.
