I joined King's College London in 2021 as a lecturer in Culture, Media and creative Industries, with a specific focus on participatory community arts, activism and social change, and intangible cultural heritage. Before King's, I worked as a lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter, where I also received a PhD in Drama in 2016. I am a community theatre practitioner and worked in this field across the South West of England and London.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Performance studies
• Participatory, community-engaged arts
• Art and social-political change
• Intangible cultural heritage
• Diaspora, postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism

Teaching

• Culture and Activism
• Community Arts and Facilitation
• Creative Living and Learning
• Issues in the Creative Industries
• Analysing the Creative and Cultural Industries

Expertise and public engagement

• Trustee at Documental Theatre and Promenade Promotions.
• Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.
• Member of the Syrian Academics and Researchers Network in the UK.

Selected publications

• Forthcoming (2026) Performing Muslim Women: Islamic Feminisms and Contemporary British Theatre. Monograph to be published by Routledge.
• Abdulla, A. (2022) A Different Approach to Making Theatre with/about Refugees: A Refuge from Being a Refugee, In N. De Martini Ugolotti and J. Caudwell (eds.) "Leisure and Forced Migration: Lives Lived in Asylum Systems". London: Routledge.
• Abdulla, A. (2021) Craving Care in Refugee Camps. Dialogues in Human Geography. Volume 12, special issue.
• Abdulla, A., Schaefer, K. et al (2021) Artist Development: Class, Diversity and Exclusion. In Studies in Theatre and Performance, Vol. 40. No. 3. Pages 334-345.
• Abdulla A., (2018) British-Pakistani Female Playwrights: Feminist Perspectives on Sexuality, Marriage, and Domestic Violence. In Aslam, S. and Kanwal, A (Eds) “The Routledge Companion to Pakistani Anglophone Writing.” Routledge: London.