I am a PhD student studying the history of modern Central Asia. My current project explores the transnational history of displacement and return migration of the qandas, Kazakh repatriate communities from Xinjiang, now living in Kazakhstan. It looks at the ongoing struggle of the qandas in Kazakhstan and those who continue to live under mass surveillance in Xinjiang as part of longer processes of violence, dispossession, rural decline and urbanization.

  • Modern Central Asia
  • Soviet History 
  • Migration Studies 
  • Silas Palmer Fellowship, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2024)
  • Luce/ACLS Travel Grant in China Studies, American Council of Learned Socities (2024)
  • History Associates Graduate Fellowship Award, UC Santa Barbara (2023)
  • Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) Graduate Research Award, UC Santa Barbara (2023)
  • Ann Rappaport Prize for Best Seminar Paper, Department of History, UC Santa Barbara (2022)