I am an Assistant Professor of Social Justice and Social Change at Hamline University, where my research examines the relationship between imperial power and identity formation. As a postcolonial sociologist of race, empire, and culture, I deploy historical and ethnographic methods to capture the lived experiences of racialized and marginalized groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, focusing on how their identities are shaped through interactions with British and U.S. empires.

Currently I am writing a book titled "Veil of Empire: Racialized Subjectivity and Afghan Identity Under U.S. Occupation," exploring how the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan shaped the identities and self-conceptions of middle-class Afghan youth. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Kabul's literary circles and social gatherings, I examine how young Afghans internalized and negotiated racialized views perpetuated through the War on Terror. This work reveals how spatial segregation between Afghans and foreigners, exclusion from withdrawal negotiations, and other occupation technologies created what I term "racialized space" and "racialized time," profoundly impacting Afghan self-perception. By centering the voices and experiences of these young people, my book offers a subaltern perspective often absent in studies of empire, which typically focus on imperial practices rather than their effects on the occupied.

My peer-reviewed work has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies. My work has been supported by awards including the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin Und Gerd Bucerius Trajectories of Change Scholarship, Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs through multiple research fellowships, and the Center for the Study of South Asia at Brown University. I have also received recognition from the American Sociological Association, winning the Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the Global and Transnational Sociology Section (2024) and an Honorable Mention from the Society for the Study of Social Problems in the Global Division Best Student Paper Competition.

Before joining Hamline University, I was a Junior Fellow at the Global Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University. I hold a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University (2024), an M.P.A. from Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2008), and M.B.A. and B.B.A. degrees from the Institute of Business Administration, Pakistan.