Historian and Educator.
With a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, I believe in the importance of engaging and grappling with our past histories to better understand how we can make a global community of the present. This is my personal website where you can explore my published academic research, teaching practices / past courses, and updates about my ongoing public history projects.
Research and Teaching Précis
My current research explores the role of Muslim actors and Islamic value-systems in the creation of our modern world. My current book project Islamic Diplomacies in a Connected Mediterranean examines the lives and writings of Moroccan and Ottoman ambassadors who traveled throughout the 18th century Mediterranean. I argue for the inclusion of these North African and Ottoman voices in histories of international thought, drawing on their travelogues, correspondence, diplomatic manuals, and biographical dictionaries to offer a connected history of diplomacy in the Mediterranean.
I offer classes on the Modern Middle East, Premodern Islamic World, and the Mediterranean. In my teaching I combine discussions on primary source material, project-based activities, and authentic assessments to foster a community-oriented learning space where students are encouraged to think about how studying the past better informs our understanding of a connected, global present.
Some Blog Posts
SNAP Bulletin Fourth Edition

A quarterly blog from the Spain North Africa Project (SNAP)
Read morePublished Academic Research
Divinely Guided Ambassadors - Ottoman and Moroccan Roots of Modern Diplomacy in the Eighteenth-Century Mediterranean
This is the front matter, abstract, TOC, and acknowledgements from my 2021 dissertation. It won the Princeton Near Eastern Studies Department’s Bayard and Cleveland Dodge Memorial Prize for best Phd dissertation.
Read moreTeaching and Courses
Friendship and Islam From Rumi to Ramy

This is a upper-level Interdisciplinary Studies seminar I developed and taught at Emory University.
Read moreFeatured categories
SNAP (5) Islam (3) Encyclopedia Entry (2)