Lina’s love and appreciation of her Pakistani roots and academic studies sparked her passion for accessibility, equity, and knowledge acquisition in everyday life, which ultimately led her to the important work she does today.

Read more below, in Lina’s words

Living in the suburbs of Northern Virginia as a part of the South Asian diaspora meant that I was constantly looking for belonging and remnants of home. When family members from overseas would visit me and my family, I recall numerous trips to Washington D.C. to visit the Smithsonian, see the White House, and eat packed lunches on the Capital. I remember as a girl visiting the Natural History Museum, meandering to the gems section. I would become excited every time I saw a gem mined in Pakistan. I would gleefully run to my parents and show them, excitedly pointing to the colorful and shiny stones, beaming with pride and joy that something familiar to me was behind the display case in this country that I felt I didn’t belong in.

In high school, I took an AP World History class. We analyzed world history, picking apart wars and conquest. Our session on colonialism was brief, fleeting, yet it sparked a desire for further knowledge for me. I knew of the Partition of South Asia, I understood the horrors of modern borders, coming from a province that was violently halved. Heading into college, I decided to major in Global Affairs, to understand further how colonialism, orientalism, and racism have not only permeated into every aspect of society, but have formed our society. This led me to further pursue a graduate degree in Islamic Studies where I studied in an interdisciplinary manner, and focused on South Asian expressions of religion. My academic studies cloaked me in a new worldview – that of decolonization. During my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I made many trips to the Smithsonian. When I saw sculptures, miniatures, jewelry, pottery within the South Asian display, instead of pride, excitement, and joy, I felt sadness, lost, hopelessness. Plundered, pillaged items that are remnants of not just a colonial past, but a present that has been rocked by violence.

This is what has continued to fuel my passion in museums. As vessels of knowledge, culture, and history, museums have a responsibility to acknowledge the atrocities committed to house items that have been stolen or plundered. Items hold value to people differently – many of the relics placed in museums carry forgotten histories, trauma, memories, violence, language, and culture. With the diverse landscape of the US, it’s necessary to consider diverse perspectives when relaying knowledge in museums. As formal institutions, my hope in museums is persistent. I love that museums are evolving entities, able to change with the diverse perspectives of shifting landscapes. My passion for museums comes from wanting to strive for accessibility, equity, and knowledge acquisition. For many other little girls, museums provide worlds unknown – it’s imperative to relay those worlds with intention in order to create beneficial, positive, and accessible impact. My love for knowledge has allowed me to conduct ethnography, visit museums around the world, and actively engage in the changing dynamics of museums and academia. When job-searching, I simply searched “museum” on LinkedIn and came across RK&A (now Kera Collective). I didn’t know that there existed an entity that actually evaluated museums and conducted work to improve them. I applied immediately, and I’m excited to be a part of the museum evaluation landscape.