She previously served as the religion reporter for International Business Times and spent several years as a staff writer at Time Inc.'s Money magazine, where her work earned a Gerald Loeb Award, a SABEW Best in Business Award, and a Henry Luce prize, among others. Her writing has appeared in Time, Fortune, Money, CNNMoney, Quartz, MarketWatch, Al Jazeera America, International Business Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Detroit Free Press and Michigan Alumnus magazine. In another life, she was also the founder and editor of Nirali Magazine, a popular website for the South Asian diaspora. Ismat is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.