I am an historian of the late Ottoman Empire and its relations with Europe. My work incorporates Digital Humanities to bring new perspectives to the history of international relations and international law. I received my Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2013 and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in International Security Studies at Yale University. I have taught at the University of Miami and at the University of California, Berkeley. I am an Assistant Professor of History at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

My monograph, Empire by Law: The Ottoman Origins of the Mandates System in the Middle East (Columbia University Press, forthcoming), traces the Ottoman roots of the post-imperial political order through an analysis of the inter-imperial contest over autonomous Egypt. I argue against a dominant historical narrative that views 1919 as the decisive break in the Middle East. Instead, I show that long before the First World War, Ottoman autonomous provinces, Egypt above all, established a new type of non-sovereign imperial administration. These autonomous provinces provided one of the main models for the League of Nations mandates in the post-Ottoman Middle East. More broadly, the Ottoman Empire contributed to and was among the key testing grounds for enduring political and administrative experiments in the post-imperial international order.

I am working on a new research project on Istanbul under Allied military occupation (1918-1923). Through an examination of the Istanbul press and opposition to the nationalist movement in Ankara led by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), this study shows that a number of intellectuals and politicians who would go on to build the new national order were firmly committed to preserving the Ottoman Empire well into the Armistice era (mütareke dönemi). This study will contribute to a fuller understanding of the ways in which imperial continuities persisted and that structured political possibilities on the ground in the 1920s in Turkey and the Arab mandates. In addition to the manuscript, I am developing a digital history component that will function as a research tool and will result in a public facing interpretive project. 

My research has been supported by numerous external grants, including the Fulbright for Turkey, the Mellon/ACLS dissertation completion fellowship, and the American Research Institute in Turkey.

When I am not writing, teaching or thinking about the Ottoman Empire, I am a blue belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and enjoy studying and teaching self-defense.