"I have proven to people that a covered woman can do whatever she wants, can be successful, can be a career woman," she says.
While she does meet curiosity and confusion among her colleagues, Abid, 38, says that American laws allow her the freedom to work and wear niqab, with an important drawback.
"I am still not welcome on the screen because of my face cover," she adds.
In the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, the niqab is a rarity. Even in the staunchly Muslim province of Aceh, where women are required to wear headscarves in public as part of sharia, or Islamic law, the niqab can hardly be seen.
Siti Nurlaila, a Muslim activist who abandoned her niqab a few years ago, said in Indonesia the niqab was worn mostly by a tiny group of Muslims who follow Wahhabism, an austere form of Sunni Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia.
"In Indonesia, the general public see people who wear the niqab as strange and people often tell their children to avoid us, or even say that we are criminals," she said.
"Even my teacher who inspired me to wear the niqab has stopped wearing it," she said.
NO SCARVES IN TURKISH COURTS
In Turkey, wearing a simple headscarf is a struggle for women who are banned from covering their heads at work in public sector jobs under the country's secular laws and are discouraged from doing so in the private sector as well.
In many offices, the only covered women are the cleaners.
There are no statistics on how many women drop out of university or the labour market because of headscarf regulations, but 60 percent of women cover their heads, according to a study by leading thinktank TESEV.
Turkey has the lowest women's labour force participation rate in the OECD, at 27 percent, which activists attribute at least in part to headscarf restrictions. Often girls wear wigs to university as a compromise solution.
Fatma Benli is a lawyer who covers her head and so cannot appear in court. She quit her masters degree studies because of the ban and campaigns for the right to wear the headscarf.
"You can't work in the public sector and even in the private sector they think you will hurt their image ... Salaries are lower because they know there's no competition as your chances of finding a job are low," she said.
There is some hope the re-elected Islamist-rooted AK Party could look at lifting the ban -- as it tried to in its first term -- but many suspect it will take years to overcome fierce secular opposition and fears that lifting the ban would wipe out Turkey's secular character.
"I'm hopeful," said Benli. "But Turkey is a complicated country, time will tell."
