My Work

Click here to access my CV.

I completed and successfully defended my prize-winning doctoral dissertation, titled “Our Struggle for Existence: Negotiating Forestry, Rural Citizenship, and Statebuilding in Modern Romania,” in Spring, 2024.

My works have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Balkanologie and the Journal of Romanian Studies and can also be found in the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia’s blog.

I am driven by an intrinsic curiosity and desire to learn. My future research will seek to historicize contemporary fears around desertification in the Danube River region. I will study how policymakers, foresters, engineers, and agronomists sought to mobilize colonization, experiment with exotic flora, and exploit socioeconomic crises to develop and “Europeanize” the ecology, economy, and landscape of the Danube River in Romania and beyond. In addition to the regional component of this project, I will look at the role in this project of transnational networks of business, experts, and species that connected East-Central Europe to the world, from the Appalachians to the Indian Subcontinent.

My work focuses on the intersections between rural society, the environment, governance and statebuilding, and the history of science. My approach and methodology to historical research are interdisciplinary and heavily informed by sociological, anthropological, and ecological thought. My past presentations include discussions of pedagogical approaches to environmental history, research findings, and research methods. Please see my CV, available under “My Work,” for a complete list of my works, presentations, and invited talks.

My other current projects include an article on the importance of colonial medical discourse for forestry in Romania, linking the country with imperialism in Africa and Asia, and a digital history project to make accessible primary source documents from marginalized peoples in the histories of science, the environment, and rural history for the modern classroom.