Samia is a California native who has been living in the UK since 2014. She is an actor, director, and early career researcher. She has a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of the Pacific in California, an MFA in Acting and PhD in Performing Arts from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and has also received actor training through the Black Arts Institute in New York, and the British American Drama Academy (BADA) in Oxford.

Samia’s practice-based PhD research examined womanhood and the social stigma of blackness through the stereotypical representation of black women in the performing arts industry, on stage and screen, and the effects it has on black actresses, in the UK and US. Samia has a desire to break barriers and forge new paths in the performing arts industry. She is currently writing chapters for two different forthcoming academic publications exploring Stanislavsky and Gender, and Women in Contemporary British Theatre.

Zubair is a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London (KCL). Before joining KCL, he was an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Islamia University of Bahawalpur in Pakistan, where he taught for over a decade. He holds a PhD in Film Studies from University of Southampton and an MA in Mass Communication from University of Punjab in Lahore.

Zubair’s research has focused on popular cinema, genre hybridity, gender, and religion. He has also completed a funded project that looked into the stereotypical images of women in TV dramas. Zubair is currently working on a book project on South Asian cinemas.