I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, interested in colonial South Asia. In December 2019, I completed my B.A. in Global Affairs with a concentration in the Middle East and North Africa at George Mason University. I have had the privilege of being awarded two Critical Language Scholarships—the first for Hindi in Jaipur, India (2019) and the second for Persian in Dushanbe, Tajikistan (2023). I am also an alumna of the Qasid Arabic Institute's program in Amman, Jordan (2022) and the American Institute of Indian Studies's Hindi program in Jaipur, India (2020).

My current dissertation work will take me to the United Kingdom, Europe, and South Asia for archival research and fieldwork. I write about courtesans in late nineteenth century colonial India, their reception among Muslim reformist contemporaries, the imagined courtesan figure as she emerged in popular media, and the continued ramifications that these narratives about gender, sex, and religion have for modern India and Pakistan. I am also exploring the roles courtesans held in their respective circles and how the interactions between them and their audiences shaped the Indo-Muslim milieu around the turn of the twentieth century. My research languages include Hindi/Urdu, Persian, Arabic, English, and German. I have a soft spot for classical Latin, having been a student of this language for seven years, and have recently initiated a very dubious attempt to teach myself modern Greek.

Prior to starting graduate school, I had the honor of working in Washington, D.C. Throughout my undergraduate career and my brief respite from academia for a year after graduation, I wore many policy hats: I had a stint on Capitol Hill, worked in the aerospace policy arena, the reproductive rights non-profit space, and on international education initiatives. I have worked as a tutor in the United States and instructed English, health, and life skill courses in India. My other passions include dance, martial arts, and weightlifting.

I welcome emails from interested applicants, especially those who come from non-traditional backgrounds and/or have similar interests.