Born abroad at the height of the Lebanese civil war to Lebanese and Palestinian parents, raised on the East Coast of the USA, educated in the UK, and currently engaging in what Claudia Durastani would call “reverse migration,” with a move to the Middle East,Dr Shamma has lived in movement and waiting much of her life. In terms of her own displacement, she considers herself lucky, but familiar and sensitive to what it means to be “other,” to living “out of place” as Edward Said calls it, and to the weight of waiting which accrues over a lifetime. Professionally, Dr Shamma is a tenured professor and researcher who transmits ideas about literature and migration to curious audiences as Professor of Literature in UK and US universities from Oxford, to FAU, to Durham, to the University of Reading, to the University of Hull (in that order). She is the author of four academic books to date which showcase her expertise in two distinct fields: New York School poetry, and Migration and Identity. She has also published over a dozen of peer-reviewed articles and essays in academic journals, newspapers, and more, and serves as a judge of poetry contests and academic funding bodies, having received international awards for her writing and research. Most recently, she was awarded the PEN America Jean Stein Prize for Oral History, for her forthcoming trade book, “When We Talk about Home.”