Shadi received her M.A. in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley in 2005 and immediately joined a team that launched The New York Times' web-first desk as an intern, later working as a freelancer for their news desk.
In 2011 she moved to Cairo amid Egypt's revolution, where she worked as a photographer, journalist and documentary filmmaker, while also managing a team for an award-winning innovative interactive documentary platform.
In 2014 Shadi helped launch the app for AJ+, a digital news outlet of Al Jazeera. She worked to build its groundbreaking digital media strategy, and innovated news reporting with a mobile-first approach. She was among the first journalists to broadcast live on Facebook – from the refugee crisis in Europe to violent clashes in Palestine. She also co-established a documentary team that produces the award-winning docuseries "Direct From with Dena Takruri."
Today Shadi is an Executive Producer at AJ+. Her documentary teams have won Peabody, Emmy, Edward R. Murrow and James Beard awards. She has been hired by universities and organizations including the Poynter Institute to lead trainings, hold lectures or present work.
Shadi is a member of the ONA-Poynter Institute Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media and has received the Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace, Chips Quinn Fellowship and Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism. In 2016 she was the AJ+ employee selected to receive Al Jazeera's spotlight award.