I am interested in the political and social history of the Modern Middle East and, in particular, the transformation of Iraq and the Persian Gulf region from the late Ottoman period until the present day. My interests have changed substantially since my undergraduate years, when I focused on European literature and political economy (I wrote my thesis on Marx's Capital). Still, I continue to harness methodologies I learned studying those topics in my new pursuits. 

After graduating, I decided to learn Arabic and spent time off and on living in Jordan and Bahrain. In Bahrain, I worked in the market-research business analyzing energy and industrial trends. I spent much of the pandemic learning more about Arabic music (teaching myself elementary oud and ney) and exploring the rich musical traditions of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq.

Since arriving at Princeton, I have been working on improving my Arabic and learning Turkish (modern Turkish for now, and later Ottoman). Though I still plan to write a dissertation on more recent times, I have also been exploring the long arc of Islamic history and can envision working in this broader field in the future. Ironically, studying the history of Islam has brought me back full circle to Europe via the Balkans under Ottoman rule and the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily under Arab rule—three areas whose languages and cultures have long been important to me.