Doctoral Student in History
About
I am a Ph.D. student in the History Department. My current scholarly interests revolve around the history of metal mining in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, with regional focuses on the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. For my doctoral dissertation, I look into the longue durée of mining development in these regions from the 18th through the 20th centuries and compare different mining trajectories within the same “imperial family,” under similar regulatory and financial frameworks. I am interested in questions regarding property relations, infrastructures, supply chains, environmental health, and the financing and cultures of mining. I aim to reveal multiple, multiscalar, and sometimes overlaying historical, cultural, socioeconomic, and geophysical layers of mining in the places of my interest, and contribute to the enduring debates among historians on empire, colonization, and continuity vis-à-vis change.
I am a promoter and practitioner of digital scholarship and am dedicated to building open-access information spaces. I created or co-created several open-access digital resources, including the Digital Handbook for Research on Soviet History, Fontes: Open Access Sources for Ukrainian History, and Caspiana: A Digital Toolbox for Students and Scholars of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Recent Work:
“Kazakhstan’s Growing Role in the Global Energy Transition May Come at a Cost to Local Communities,” New Lines Magazine, May 9, 2024.
"Dirty Jobs for 'Clean' Energy: Global Energy Transitions Encounter Industrial Legacies on the Kazakh Steppe," Case Study, UM-SEAS Environmental Justice Library, Gala, December 2023.
"Greener Pastures: China's Clean Energy Engagement in Central Asia," Policy Memo, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, March 2023.
