Bio
Habiba Nosheen is an award-winning Pakistani-Canadian freelance journalist currently based in New York City. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she teaches radio and video reporting.
Her stories have been published in The New York Times, TIME, Glamour and The Washington Post, CBC, PBS, BBC and NPR. Habiba is fluent in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi with conversational knowledge of French. Born in Lahore, Pakistan she immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of nine. She has reported extensively from South Asia.
Habiba works in print, radio and television documentaries. She has shot, produced and reported the PBS investigative documentary, Wombs for Rent (2009), which looked at the commercial surrogacy industry in the United States. She also worked as a correspondent, producer, shooter and editor for the PBS investigation, To Adopt A Child (2011), which examined allegations of corruption and fraud in adoptions from Nepal. She is currently directing her upcoming film, Kari: Outlawed in Pakistan which examines the justice system for rape cases in Pakistan. She is also a frequent on-air contributor for the weekly CBC radio show, Definitely Not the Opera.
Habiba has received numerous prestigious awards for her reporting including the 2012 Gracie award for Outstanding Reporter/Correspondent for her investigation on adoption fraud, a Gemini nomination, South Asian Journalist Association Award, Morton Mintz Award for International Reporting, the Leslie Sanders Award, IRE finalist, and she was part of the team that won the Best Canadian Feature Award at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Her films have been supported by The Fund for Investigative Journalism, The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund and ITVS.
In 2009-2010, Habiba received the prestigious Kroc Fellowship with NPR. Her radio stories have appeared on Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
She holds a masters degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a masters degree from York University in Toronto in Women's Studies.
When not traveling on an assignment, Habiba can be found in her kitchen baking and cooking. You can reach her at: Habiba [dot] Nosheen [at] gmail.com or follow her on twitter: @habibanosheen.