Hi everyone! I’m a historian of the "Global Middle Ages" and an educator in the human sciences.

My first book project explores an implicit structural parallel between the political cultures of France and China. In both regions, the infrastructure of communication and commemoration—what we might call the "church"—shaped the rise of a royal bureaucracy that centralized resources and violence over defined territories—the "state." This foundational role of the “church” becomes most visible when centralized government breaks down, as it did in the tenth century. 

My second book project looks at the evolving relationship between diplomacy and liturgy—two key ways of engaging with distant sources of power—in the Carolingian and Tang empires. Through this comparison, I invite two groups of colleagues—historians of medieval Eurasia and political theorists—to consider a couple of big questions: What made up the “intangible infrastructure” that enabled long-distance exchange of information and goods in medieval Eurasia? And what’s the connection between premodern “religious” diplomacy and modern “secular” international law?

Outside of academic research, I’m also committed to public education beyond the university. Since 2023, I’ve been co-creating educational videos on human science with Aran Gharibpour on our YouTube channel, Versucher. As a student of music and visual art, I enjoy experimenting with drama-based pedagogy to turn my classroom into a space for active learning.