Awista Ayub

Awista Ayub is the Senior Director of New America’s Fellows Program. She is the author of Kabul Girls Soccer Club.

Since 2016, Ayub has led the Fellows Program, managing the selection of nearly 150 Fellows who have gone on to produce over 60 books, 13 feature-length documentaries, more than 30 longform articles, and two narrative podcasts. Works written and produced by New America Fellows during her tenure have received Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards, earned an Oscar nomination, become New York Times bestsellers, and garnered many other honors, including film premieres at Sundance, SXSW, and the Tribeca Film Festival, demonstrating the Fellows’ and program’s influence on the national storytelling landscape.

While in this role, she developed and launched key program platforms—including the Fellows Archive, a monthly program newsletter, and a digital magazine on resilience—to expand the program’s visibility and deepen engagement with Fellows’ work. Ayub also led the development and execution of two international fellowships: the Afghanistan Observatory and the India-US Fellows Exchange.

Prior to joining New America, Ayub worked as the Director of South Asia programs at Seeds of Peace and was based in Mumbai, India, with extensive travel to Pakistan and Afghanistan during her six-year tenure. She also served as the education and health officer at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC.

In 2004, Ayub founded Afghanistan’s first girls’ soccer team—a program that was featured on ESPN and received the 2006 ESPY’s Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Her media appearances include ABC News (“Person of the Week”), NPR, ESPN, Glamour magazine, CNN, The New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated, The San Francisco Chronicle, Washingtonian, and USA Today.

Ayub has served as an advisory council member and contributor to espnw.com and has written extensively about issues related to Muslim women in sports. She was named one of 32 “women who will change the way sports are played” in ESPN the Magazine’s Title IX 40th-anniversary issue.

Ayub earned her BS in chemistry from the University of Rochester and her MPA from the University of Delaware.