Bio

I am a cultural anthropologist and am Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia-Vancouver in fall 2022. From fall 2020 to spring 2022, I was Assistant Professor of Global Studies (general faculty) at the University of Virginia. My courses focus on the topics of refugee mobilities, border zones, migrant-led political activism, settler colonialism, the politics of multiculturalism, and humanitarianism. My research is rooted in ethnographic methods and lies at the intersection of empire, diaspora and migrant-targeted social welfare in settler colonial contexts with a focus on Australia, the US, and Afghanistan. My current project examines the intersection of empire and diasporic political activism in relation to the global Afghan diaspora since the War on Terror. My working manuscript, titled Between Care and Criminality: Family, Marriage, and Migration in Australian Social Welfare is an ethnographic study of the politics of race and gender within immigrant-targeted social welfare in settler colonial states, with a focus on Australia. Other research interests include Muslim Australian women's anti-Islamophobia politics, and the logics of border control and extraterritorial sovereignty in Australian offshore detention centers. I received my PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Rice University and MAs in Near Eastern Studies from New York University and Anthropology from The New School. I received my BA in Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures and International Relations from Columbia University.