PhD Candidate
Late Modern Europe
My current research focuses on the intersection of Imperial Russian/Soviet history and Ottoman/Turkish history in the Caucasus. I am primarily interested in the intertwined collapse of these neighboring empires and the emergence of radically new states in their wake. My proposed dissertation project seeks to examine parallels between Kemalist and Soviet state-building campaigns in the 1920s-1930s on the Soviet-Turkish border.
Education
BA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies & International Studies (Miami University), 2011
MA in Comparative History (Central European University), 2015
Research Interests
- Nations and Nationalism
- Comparative Empires
- Borderland Studies
- Political Geography
- Memory Studies
- Oral History
Awards & Fellowships
Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship | U.S. Department of Education (2022-23)
Short Term Research Fellowship| American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (2022)
Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Research Fellowship | Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2021-22)
Title VIII Language Fellowships (Georgian) | American Councils Eurasian Regional Language Program (2020-21, 4 consecutive semesters)
Summer Fellowship for Advanced Turkish | American Research Institute in Turkey (2019)
Academic-Year FLAS Fellowship for Turkish | UC Berkeley, Center for Middle Eastern Studies (2018-19)
Summer Research Fellowship | UC Berkeley, Institute for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2018)
Michael I. Gurevich Prize | UC Berkeley Dept. of History (2018)
Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia, Fellowship (2017)
Alfa Fellowship Program | Moscow, Russia (2016-17)
Outstanding Academic Achievement Award | Central European University (2015)
Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship | Azerbaijan (2012-13)
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Junior Fellowship (2011-12)
American Council of Teachers of Russian Scholar Laureate (2011)
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Grant for Russian (2010)
Conference & Workshop Presentations
- "A Staging Ground for the Revolutionary 'East': The Making of the Ajaran Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, 1920s-1930s" // ARISC Works-in-Progress Series in Tbilisi, Georgia (July 20, 2022)
- "Kemalists in 'Red Ajaristan': Soviet-Turkish Friendship and Contested Sovereignty in the Ajaran Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, 1920s-30s" // "From Enemies to Allies? Turkish-Russian Relations" Conference at the University of Vienna (June 17, 2022)
- "Women's Enlightenment Campaigns and the Formation of the Ajaran Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1920s-30s)" // International Symposium of Young Scholars in the Humanities at Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia (May 29, 2022)
- "Forging 'Sakartvelo': The Soviet-Turkish Crisis of 1945 and the Making of a Georgian Homeland in the 1930s-40s" // Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies Conference at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary (May 31, 2019)
- "Geographies of Loss, Narratives of Redemption: Azerbaijan's Culture of Perpetual War" // "Contested Bodies: Identities and Spaces in in Post-Soviet Territories" Conference at the University of Pennsylvania (March 16, 2018)
