I am a PhD candidate in the joint History and Middle Eastern Studies program at Harvard University. I focus on the cultural and intellectual history of the early modern era (ca. 1300 to 1600) and am interested in cross-cultural transmission across the Mediterranean, especially in the fields of book history and the history of science. My advisors are Professors Cemal Kafadar and Ann Blair.

My dissertation examines the historical understanding of time and temporality in the late medieval and early modern Ottoman Empire. I take temporality to mean the lived experience of time, and thus I explore how technological innovations, cultural influences, and philosophical ideas shaped the concept of time from approximately 1330 to 1600. I begin with a study of Ottoman calendars, highlighting their variety and emphasizing that the Ottomans did not, as is commonly suggested, merely utilize the Islamic calendar. I trace the multicultural origins of these calendars to late antiquity and the circumstances that led nomadic Turkmen tribes to settle in medieval Anatolia, where Christianity was widespread. I situate Ottoman festivals, such as Hızırellez/the Feast of St. George, within a shared Mediterranean temporality shaped by the geography of Anatolia and environmental influences. I then trace the influence of Neo-platonic views on time at the first Ottoman medreses (colleges) to foreground the normative philosophical and religious beliefs regarding time. I complicate religious notions of time by highlighting the many folk rituals and calendars with ancient and pagan origins. I merge all these perspectives to explore how the urban settings in Istanbul shaped time and daily life and how this contrasted with the large agrarian populations in other parts of the empire. I conclude by examining the technologies that were then available, the implications of the increasing mechanization of time through clocks, the persistence of astrological concerns, and the role that prognostication played in political affairs. 

My dissertation has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Commission (Fulbright-Hays DDRA), the Renaissance Society of America, the Delmas Foundation, Villa I Tatti, Princeton University Library, the Newberry Library, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, among others.

I received my MPhil in European History in 2016 from the University of Oxford, where I was an Ertegun Scholar and was supervised by John-Paul Ghobrial. I graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, where I majored in History with a minor in Arabic. My senior thesis advisor was Anthony Grafton, and my senior thesis won the Horace H. Wilson ’25 prize and the Walter Phelps prize.

I am a frequent host at the Ottoman History Podcast. I also work on sound production for OHP episodes and currently manage their social media. I am also the host of "Desert Cruising with Captain Ahab," a weekly rock and metal show at 103.3FM WPRB Princeton that I began in 2012.