Aayat is a multidisciplinary researcher and writer, and a graduate in English Literature from Delhi University. She has worked in journalistic and editorial roles with The Polis Project, Penguin Random House, and HarperCollins India. Her research interrogates the representation of Anglophone and translated South Asian Muslim literature, challenging its marginalization in Indian curricula. At the YIF, she hopes to deepen her intersectional approach, examining the socio-political and economic forces shaping the historiography of minority writers. Her work in art curation and pro-bono education is deeply tied to her upbringing across Lucknow and Srinagar, her love for wild trees, Indo-Islamic architecture, and the quiet gaze of her 30 mm film camera.