Award-winning poet and artist Shamma Al Bastaki graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi with a double major in sociology & public policy and literature & creative writing. Ambassador for the Louvre Abu Dhabi since 2015, she was selected for the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship. Shamma won the 2019 ADMAF Creativity Award for her ethno-poetry collection House to House |بيت لبيت’, excerpted in the Asymptote Journal of Global Contemporary Literature, and taught in universities and schools across Japan, Taiwan, and the US. As a poet, she has been commissioned by Louvre Abu Dhabi, the UAE Minister of Tolerance, and had a special feature on CNN. She performs on local and international platforms and served on the curatorial committee of Hekayah. Shamma is a founding member of Untitled Chapters, a literary group for women writers, and an inaugural member of the Cultural Office Women’s Creative Network launched by HH Sheikha Manal Bint Monammed Bin Rashed Al Maktoum. She recently joined Qasr Al Hosn – DCT.