ABOUT ME

I am a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union. In fall 2020, I began my Ph.D. in History at the University of Pennsylvania.

​

Experience, identity, subjectivity, nationality policy, and the constructions of race and nation, define the core of my work.

​

Currently, I am working on two research projects.

The first examines how African Americans experienced the Soviet Union from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to WWII. This project focuses on how African Americans perceived Central Asians, specifically in the Uzbek SSR.

​

The second uses the concept of subjectivity to study lived experience in the Ukrainian countryside during the Famine of 1932.

DOWNLOAD FULL CV
Image by Simon Hurry

RESEARCH INTERESTS

 

  • Soviet Nationality Policy

  • Race and Ethnicity in the USSR and Post-Soviet space

  • African-American experience in the USSR and Russia

  • Soviet Subjectivity

  • Old Believers in the Russian Empire

EDUCATION

University of Pennsylvania, 2020-2026

Ph.D., History 

Fields: Modern Europe (Russia, Soviet Union, Eurasia) and America (From 1877)

Harvard University, 2012-2014

M.A., Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia

Focus: History and Russian language

Swarthmore College, 2008-2012

B.A. History

Adams State University, 2017-2019

Graduate-level courses in American history